Fake news is a poison to our society, it allows the spread of dangerous claims with little to no evidence backing them up, throughout entire communities and even countries. It can convince people to turn on each other, mistrust the government, and even convince them that a massive gaslighting campaign is taking place to cover up the truth and that they're the few "special" believers who know the truth. So why is this misinformation spread in the first place? There are a number of factors ranging from simple lies that pick up traction, to actual interference by foreign governments but in my opinion, right now it's most rampant in politics. Each side is so desperate to fire up their base and disparage their opponents they're willing to spread anything, no matter how unsubstantiated it is. Fake news is spread using simple and snappy headlines, often aiming to provoke a knee-jerk emotional response in readers. This is done in an effort to get them fired up and start spreading information without considering whether what they've just read is true or not. Bots also play a huge role especially on social media platforms in the spread of fake news with this article saying "Moreover, the authors of this study found that 33% of the top sharers of content from low-credibility sources were likely to be bots, significantly higher than the proportion of bots among top sharers of fact-checked content." So what's the solution to this problem? Always verify what you read, make sure the information is coming from a credible source and try to avoid emotion taking control of your actions.
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