Week 4 Blog Post

Fake news has plagued many different social media platforms and other websites for years now, with not enough action being taken to stop or punish them. Facebook, for example, had taken steps to fight against these fake news sources when they started taking the problem a little more seriously, but now the people spreading this information have found a way to bypass Facebooks countermeasures. By using editable link previews, they can alter the headline of the article while still keeping the official appearance and credibility of a large news network like CNN. In the article linked below, we are shown how an article about how presidential candidate Howard Schultz is dropping his plans to run for office in 2020, and we see that the article was made by CNN. Just below that post, however, is an almost identical one, with the same thumbnail and still claiming to be from CNN, but the headline is changed to say, “Latest polls show Howard Schultz beating Trump, Dems 2020”. This is a wildly different message than the headline before. But some may argue that this is not a big deal, as only the headline can be changed and not the article itself, which would be a lot better. But sadly, most people only read the headlines and never actually read the articles, so the fake news is still spreading just as much as before. Facebook and over media sites need to take more aggressive actions against misinformation so they public is not tricked and manipulated by a potential third party with their own agenda.

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