Capstone Project: Ambiguous Concept of Fake News Privacy

The sample capstone project outline provides a structured framework for organizing and planning the key components of a comprehensive and impactful capstone project. The purpose of this project will be to include fake news as the main agenda and the consequences of privacy.

Social media is the new civilization when if people are not ready to admit, but the fact remains. It is the platform that has made many people very popular and led to some even getting three times wealthier than they ever thought. With globalization came social media as it acts as the interconnection of people who are strictly related and others who have no relation at all. People used to be shaken by long-distance relationship but the use of skype and other video chats has made it possible for people who are further away to be in communication. The media covers sports activities, media violence, advertising, and fake news. 

Fake news is a two-way thing. It might hit someone on a positive side and become rich and that or diminish someone’s reputation for good. Fake news has shown many consequences to individuals, primarily in Germany, France, and Italy. The rate of fake news in the three countries, among others, has undeniably increased with a significant margin in recent years, hitting the news stations and newspapers. Fake news and social media work in handy together as social media acts as the leading platform where this news is spread to millions of people. A good example based on people’s argument is trolled on Donald Trump, where people say that the fake news had a lot of contribution during the election of Trump. The most significant impact that comes with fake news is the fact that at times it ends up overlapping the real story and sometimes becomes permanent truth.

According to critical analysis, it has been proven that the fake news always starts with a small portion of people about 3 to 5 members who then post the report online, and it ends up going viral. The main effect is that the public is unable to separate fiction from the real facts leading to more confusion.

Case Study

There was a recent case study conducted at the University of British Colombia with over 600 undergraduates’ presents. The motion test was to separate fiction from fact. The students were shown a screen shown of real news on a website banner with sources like Huffington and Fox News, while others from social media and yahoo among the Globe. The students were to rate whether the content was legit or fake on a scale of one to ten.

Furthermore, as an addition to that, they were also present with another screenshot of fake news from websites where the individuals gained favor afterward. A good example was the ABCnews.com.co, which is copyright of the original site of ABC news though with fake news. The result proved that it is so difficult to separate fiction from facts as the majority of the students ended up rate the false news. That is because it always seems enticing and more appealing, however very sophisticated. The same applies to a photograph. Sometimes it is so tricky to conclude whether it is fabricated or authentic.

The ideology of the facts and fiction becomes inseparable as they have the same features as the real news. Furthermore, even the journalists’ norms of writing the articles are very similar to the legitimacy of the actual story. Some of the press are the likes of World True News and Boston Tribune, which people believe more than what should be focused. 

The rise of fake news begun taking over countrywide in early 2017 and late 2016. It had a considerable effect in an election as it increased the number of votes of those who were being trolled on social media while creating fear to others. Hence, fake news is highly termed as a threat, especially when it comes to the election in the United States by targeting the citizens of the country. The fear that comes with this news is meant to influence the people and their behaviors as well, thus contributing to voting on that side.

The worst part is that according to all trials, there is still no permanent solution to getting rid of fake news in any country. The temporary solution can only start with the quality of source providers of the actual report to outdoor the false one. There it would be highly recommended that the states take action and provide adequate tools for improving the quality delivery of reports, including the provision of thorough training. There is no easy way around these, but not taking action will have a considerable consequence compared to taking action.

The other analysis was on “prime the pump,” which went viral with many articles suggesting that Trump invented the term. However, it is false, and the term was there over 80 years ago, even before people knew the meaning. The introduction of the term was introduced by Nazis in the early 1930s and not in 2017 by Trump as fake news has it. However, he ended up on the advantage side of the rumors and became the benefit of the term. 

The media is responsible for shaping up these stories, and it should not be taken lightly at all. It was recently discovered that at least half of the Americans are affected by the fake news every day, and to them, it is even worse than the terrorist attacks or racism. People did not fail to act to the fake news on social media as they began doing demonstrations of the road “Real facts matter!” meaning that they were tired of the lies as it only brought fear and terror in them. It even got worse to social-political warfare leading to Russia to campaign against it. The likes of Google, Facebook, and Twitter might have to stand up by producing strict policies on those spreading rumors on fake news, but the solution can only be lured by self-willing to take action. There was a lot of reaction even from foreign countries that had a close relationship with America as it affected communication.

In another scenario, there was a doctored video that went viral of Nancy Pelosi, a House Speaker. It was edited misleadingly and was claimed to be disseminated by Trump. The video went viral to millions of people and took time before it was demoted. It was during this time in late 2016 when another video went viral where the content focused on Hillary Clinton’s mental and health state to bring out the negative part that she was not fit to run as president. The incident led to many critics from the public on a Facebook question why it took so much time before the Pelosi video was demoted and made it hard to find, as it could not be deleted permanently. The matter was so intense that it was focusing on whether or not Facebook should be demoted ultimately, and people to stick to WhatsApp and twitter alone. Libel rules and laws were created together with the misinformation complain as well as remove economic incentives. Shin et al., emphasized on the diffusion of misinformation on social media.

According to warner on the legislation board, the best solution would be to increase transparency on how consumer data is being shared with the public. It was discovered that most of the internet traffic comes from bot, which is leading traffic in the delivery of fake news to the public. With the help of Google, policies were created with an incentive to ban all the websites that are designed to receive revenue from people by giving fake news frequently.

In conclusion, fake news does not only affect democratic election and fear but a significant influence on racist ideas and the power of bullying. Based on recent analysis, it has been proven that fake news has a lot of effect on bigoted views. A good example is a citizen reading an article about Muslims invading the country, and the question becomes whether or not the individual will vote for that candidate who is planning to allow immigrants or the other that wants to put strong policies against invaders.

References

• Dutton, W. H., Reisdorf, B., Dubois, E., & Blank, G. (2017). Search and politics: The uses and impacts of search in Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Spain, and the United States.
• Farhall, K., Carson, A., Wright, S., Gibbons, A., & Lukamto, W. (2019). Political Elites' Use of Fake News Discourse across Communications Platforms. International Journal of Communication, 13, 23.
• Lee, T. (2019). The global rise of “fake news” and the threat to democratic elections in the USA. Public Administration and Policy.
• Pennycook, G., & Rand, D. G. (2019). Lazy, not biassed: Susceptibility to fake partisan news is better explained by a lack of reasoning than by motivated reasoning. Cognition, 188, 39-50.
• Robinson, P. H., & Robinson, S. (2017). Trigger Crimes & Social Progress: The Tragedy-Outrage-Reform Dynamic in America. Paul H. Robinson and Sarah M. Robinson, TRAGEDY, OUTRAGE, & REFORM: CRIMES THAT CHANGED OUR WORLD (Forthcoming), 17-12.
• Shin, J., Jian, L., Driscoll, K., & Bar, F. (2018). The diffusion of misinformation on social media: Temporal pattern, message, and source. Computers in Human Behavior, 83, 278-287.
• Vosoughi, S., Roy, D., & Aral, S. (2018). The spread of true and false news online. Science, 359(6380), 1146-1151.
• Wingfield, N., Isaac, M., & Benner, K. (2016). Google and Facebook aim to fake news sites. The New York Times, 11, 12.