Since the 2016 election, the phrase "fake news" has been use frequently through the years with the spread of false information across social media and other news outlets. Posts holding misleading information on a important topic can damage those who listen, almost blocking them from the truth until corrected otherwise. In the past few months, Coronavirus has been threatening all life around the world, creating a public health concern for all countries. The spread of false information about the illness can be almost as deadly as the illness itself. President Donald Trump is no newcomer to fake news, his comments on the virus has caused the death of a man in Arizona as he had taken Trump's supposed Corona virus cure. Chloroquine phosphate, a tablet used to clean fish tanks, was the "medicine" falsely approved by Donald Trump. Strategies such as platform of the writer and emotional tugging are commonly used in false news. In a time where people are desperate to not die from this illness, the man had a chance to escape the reaper's scythe if he took this "medicine." Not all fake news is entirely fake though, there holds some truth. If an individual is not educated enough to know that the information is not true, but they do know one thing in the message is true, they will believe its entirety.
Contributing to the spread of fake news, specifically in politics, many may believe that those on the far left or the far right are the main spreaders. However, those who are ideologically in the middle tend to spread more false information as they are not as informed about the matter as those on either side. In fact, according to Lisa Marshall, "about one-fifth of users at the far ideological extremes were responsible for sharing nearly half of the fake news on the two platforms." The manipulation of others just for clicks needs to end.
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