“Wikipedia is not a valid source!” is a phrase most students in the 21st century have heard from at least one teacher with a wiki vendetta. Why is this? Or a better question why is it just Wikipedia? The reason for these instructions is that anyone can put anything on Wikipedia. The reality of the matter is that this is true for the entire internet. Anybody with internet access can write a “professional” article, leave any opinion as fact or put misinformation out to the world. I wanted to know is it just Wikipedia that we can’t trust?
So with a quick Google search, I found a Wikipedia article labeled “fake news websites”. What I found is a list of official sounding digital news networks like “Breaking-CNN.com, responsible for numerous death hoaxes, internet NBCNews.com.co which Mimics the URL, design, and logo of NBC News”(“List of Fake News Websites.” Wikipedia). All these sites were listed in addition to hundreds of other websites with seemingly credible website names. Fake news can drastically change a nation’s government. All throughout American history, fake news has played an important political role. Whether it’s one-party bashing another party or someone wanting to get attention. Most Americans know about Trump’s battle with “Fake news” President Trump tweeted ‘There is great anger in our Country caused in part by inaccurate, and even fraudulent, reporting of the news. The Fake News Media, the true Enemy of the People, must stop the open & obvious hostility & report the news accurately & fairly. That will do much to put out the flame of Anger and Outrage and we will then be able to bring all sides together in Peace and Harmony. Fake News Must End!’ this was in response to an earlier conversation he had with a CNN reporter who the president accused of producing fake news. When different articles come out information can be corrupted weaning to assert a political view or worldview point or outright wrong and most people don’t know the difference this corrupted their knowledge on whatever they just read about. This, however, is nothing new. in fact, it’s been going on in our nation’s history since the third presidential election. John Adams and Thomas Jefferson both ran fake newspaper a articles slandering the other. Jefferson accused Adams of having “ hideous hermaphroditical character, which has neither the force and firmness of a man, nor the gentleness and sensibility of a woman” and in return Adam stated this about Jefferson “a mean-spirited, low lived fellow, the son of a half-bred Indian squaw, sired by a Virginian mulatto father” (Founding Fathers’ dirty campaign by Kerwin Swint). These accusations if believed by the common people can change the way an election goes and therefore the nation.
Fake news also leads to dangerous lifestyles and health trend such as the “chocolate diet” which promoted chocolate as part of a healthy lifestyle. It promoted that chocolate helps lower cholesterol and promote fat loss. It even made the front page of Bild one of Europe’s largest newspapers. The Bild story quotes the study’s lead author, Johannes Bohannon, Ph.D., research director of the Institute of Diet and Health (I Fooled Millions Into Thinking Chocolate Helps Weight Loss. Here’s How. by John Bohannon). The problem is that John Bohannon doesn’t have a Ph.D. and the research is completely bogus and he did it all on purpose to demonstrate how quickly bad science can get out to the public. He paid a “scientific sounding website” to run it and then sent the study to numerous websites who the cited the website he paid when they published the article. The FDA says this is a major issue “Health fraud scams refer to products that claim to prevent, treat, or cure diseases or other health conditions, but are not proven safe and effective for those uses. Health fraud scams waste money and can lead to delays in getting proper diagnosis and treatment. They can also cause serious or even fatal injuries.” (Health Fraud Scams U S Food and Drug Administration Home Page)
The internet can also be used to create things that don’t exist in reality. Take the example of Oobah Butler a vice reporter who fooled all of London. He created a fake restaurant and got it to London’s number one restaurant in London. The most surprising thing about London’s number one is not that the restaurant’s menu is that ”Instead of meals, our menu is comprised of moods. You choose which fits your day, and our Chef interprets that. We can also tailor dishes for special occasions and at extra cost.” (Menu The Shed At Dulwich) but that the restaurant didn’t exist. Ironically Oobah started this writing career by writing fake reviews for Tripadvisor, so he decided why not see if he could get a non-existent restaurant to number one just with fake reviews. He did just that he took The Shed At Dulwich from number 18,149 to number one all by having his friends write fake reviews. Before he knew it he had hundreds of calls from people trying to get reservations and critics wanting to review something that didn’t exist. If you simply googled “best restaurant in London” something that doesn’t exist would be suggested for you to go on a nice date and you’d call in and be put on an endless waiting list with hundreds if not thousands of other people all hopefull for nothing. Some people on the internet dont even exist. Weve heard of “catfishing” and cyber preditiors but now some people arent even people. Instagram model Shudu is 100% CGI, she models clothes, has photos with other CGI characters and even creepy Instagram stockers who comment on her posts. This technology isn’t simply harmless it can be used to make it look like famous but more importantly powerful people look as if they are saying or doing things that never happened in a process called Deep fake. An example of this is Deep fake videos making celebrities look as if they are in pornographic videos. This technology could be used to create fake news as we discussed before.
