What To Do About Fake News

The hot new issue, both nationally and internationally, is the problem of fake news being disseminated on the Internet.  Companies like Google and Face are being urged to censor such articles and punish alleged violators.  Also, teams of supposedly "responsible" news providers and technology giants are being assembled to police this alleged problem.  Therein lies the problem.  Who gets to decide what is real and what is not?  Propaganda is propagated on all sides.  How do we decide if some item is the truth?

It is the responsibility of journalists to check and double check their sources, and make sure that the information that is being disseminated is the truth.  So, who are the responsible journalists who should regulate what the world's public gets to see and hear?  A kind of Ministry of Truth has been set up by Google, called the First Draft Coalition, which touts itself as a collection of 30 major news and tech companies, tackling fake news and deciding which stories are questionable and which ones aren't.

>P>Some false stories are always going to get pushed in the heat of political campaign and wartime.  It is up to journalists to fact-check as best they can.  There is potentially a greater danger when media insiders arrogate to themselves the power to dismiss contrary evidence as unacceptable.  It's even more dangerous when these self appointed arbiters of truth combine forces with internet search engines and social media companies to essentially silence dissenting opinions by making them difficult for the public to locate.

What scares me the most is that for many people, the only news they get is something they've read on the internet, which might be fake.  They will likely believe it!  I've always been a skeptic, but now, more than ever, one must read new stories with a skeptical eye.  This will likely be discussed a lot in the future, and will get into topics like control of the internet and censorship.  I have no idea how they will sort this one out, but it should be interesting.

Just be careful.  Now, more than ever, don't believe everything you see or hear.