The COVID-19, election and fake news pandemics

In the 9th month of the COVID-19 pandemic, today’s world lives online. News of coronavirus absorbs the lives of everyday individuals across the globe. Here in the U.S., people are focused not only on the state of the pandemic, but the outcome of the 2020 election.

The President continues his rampant tweeting, asserting that voter fraud influenced the outcome of the election. He also said that “the worsening coronavirus outbreak in the United States is a ‘“Fake News Media Conspiracy.’”

Both issues are riddled with fake news throughout online spaces, from social media platforms to news and opinion outlets. Both the health and political pandemics that are coronavirus and the election breed misinformation that quickly and easily spreads online.

Most of the time, consumers are unaware when an article has misleading information or even falsehoods. Tactics used to craft a fake article and doctored videos or images are so subtle that readers aren’t able to catch them.

So how do we navigate online spaces and evaluate the quality of information that passes through our newsfeeds?

Defining Fake News and Misinformation

Fake News has many definitions and presents itself in a variety of ways. Some definitions include:

• false news stories, often of a sensational nature, created to be widely shared or distributed for the purpose of generating revenue, or promoting or discrediting a public figure, political movement, company, etc.: (Merriam Webster)

• deliberately false stories that appear to come from credible, journalistic sources, designed to be spread around the internet, increasingly targeting political opinion (Associated Press News)

Some forms of fake news include:

• ‘News’ articles, including opinion pieces and blogs

• Memes

• Deepfake photos and videos, defined as images or videos of fake events made using a form of artificial intelligence called deep learning

Targets of misinformation aren’t just young people who spend a lot of time online. A large number of people seeing fake news on their social media profiles are older users who may not recognize the name of common trolling sites, errors in articles or possibly doctored images.

That’s why actively promoting media literacy and fact checking among social media users is key.

Tech companies must combat fake news

With the onset of the 2020 election, social media companies like Twitter and Facebook faced public scrutiny over their plans to combat misinformation and fake news. The interference of fake news during the 2016 election had the nation’s lawmakers on edge, with intelligence officials monitoring for outside hacking or mass misinformation campaigns.

Heads of social media outlets are under pressure to monitor their sites more closely and limit the spread of verifiably false information. Twitter’s CEO, Jack Dorsey, decided to add a ‘flag’ feature to posts sharing disputed or false information.

Mark Zuckerburg, CEO of Facebook, told Congress he would not direct the company to flag any known fake news on users' timeline, but would warn users that an article may not be factual when they share it.

According to a March 2020 Pew Research poll, “roughly half of U.S. adults (51%) are following news about it very closely, with another 38% following it fairly closely.”

As coronavirus continues to spread across the country and people continue to stay home, social media companies have a duty to monitor outlets and accounts spreading fake news. Misinformation should not be allowed to thrive on social media platforms.

What about journalists?

As fake news is on the rise, so is the blame in journalism outlets over spreading it. Some participants in a 2017 focus group with Columbia Journalism Review said they see “much of the news media as so biased and partisan that they question its veracity.” But which outlets are really dedicated to spreading fake news, and how do we weed them out?

Attempts to combat fake news and spread awareness come at every age and every level of political involvement. In 2017, ‘NPR Ed’ asked elementary school teachers what they’re doing in their classrooms to discuss the topic. Teachers have created ‘Simon Says’ style checklists with key points like can you verify the information elsewhere? and are experts in the field connected to the information?

Walking through steps like these and teaching students to scrutinize what they read is an important step in building media literacy.

For those entrenched in social media, including older users, identifying misinformation isn’t as fun. News outlets have been busy over the last four years producing articles like “Five Myths About Misinformation” (Washington Post), and “Fake News Can Be Deadly, Here’s How to Spot it” (NPR). Regardless of recent effort, people of all ages struggle to identify misinformation.

Power of the platform

News reporters working in television, print, radio and multimedia journalism know they play an integral role in combating fake news - someone has to be the one presenting the real story. But journalists and media outlets themselves can only control the trajectory of misinformation to an extent.

The real power in controlling what and how misinformation falls on social media companies like Facebook and Twitter, where a majority of people spend their free time. As the pandemic rages on and President Trump continues to dispute the outcome of the election, the fight against misinformation is more important than ever.