I found this article on The Atlantic called "The Grim Conclusions of the Largest-Ever Study of Fake News" ( https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2018/03/largest-study-ever-fake-news-mit-twitter/555104/ ).
The article is about a large study that was conducted at MIT "that analyzed every major contested news story" and found that "the truth simply cannot compete with hoax and rumor" (Meyer 2018). The article mentions and describes several popular fake news stories that have recently been spread. One that I found interesting that I had not heard of before was about President Trump and one of his family members. A rumor was spread via social media that one of Trump's elderly cousins was dying in 2016 and there was a negative quote in his obituary. He apparently said "As a proud bearer of the Trump name, I implore you all, please don't let that walking mucus bag become president" (Meyer 2018). However, the article states that there was no evidence of this cousin or the obituary. People who despise Trump probably loved reading this article because it looked bad on him for the election.
This article opened my eyes to the amount of fake news there is out there. Many people believe whatever they see on Twitter, Facebook, or any social media. Reporters want to tell a story that is going to capture the audience and it seems the only way to do that these days is by lying. The truth seems to be too boring.
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