Fake news is creating lots of social conflicts in society. People spread fake news to manipulate the perception of reality. Lots of people are also spreading fake news for the influence of politics and the promotion of advertising. Some organizations are also working in spreading fake news because they want to mislead the people. Nowadays, social media sites have become the most important resource for people to spread fake news in society. Therefore, it is our responsibility to verify news before sharing the news. Here, we will discuss some essential tips to tackle fake messages on social media.
Understand Before Forwarding The Message:
On social media sites, you can forward a message with your friends just with the help of a click. Most of the people forward the messages to their friends without understanding it. This thing is becoming the major cause of flourishing fake news in society. Therefore, it is our responsibility to understand the message before forwarding it with our friends. You should try to know the main source of the message. If the main source of this message is your friend, you should verify either he has written himself or he has forwarded it. If he has forwarded it, you should double-check the facts of this message. After researching the main sources of this message, if you know that this message is authentic, you can share it with your friends and family members.
Check Media Carefully:
Most of the people are spreading fake news on social media sites by sharing fake media content. To create fake media content, they edit the original photos, videos and audio. For example, if they want to share the news with the help of photos, they try to create a photo with the logo of a popular news channel. As people trust on this channel, therefore, they also share this news with their friends without verifying it. Moreover, they also try to mislead the people by sending edited videos and audios. Therefore, it is also our responsibility that before trusting on the media content, we should also try to verify it from various sources. For example, if you are receiving controversial news in the form of media, you should verify it on different news channels. If the majority of the news channels is reporting the same news, you can trust on it and share it with your friends.
Don’t Open Links Which Look Different:
As we know that WhatsApp has become one of the biggest social media sites in the world because it has more than one billion users. It is easy for the people to spread fake news on the WhatsApp just by sending a link. When you click on this link, you will be redirected to a malicious website and this malicious website can harm your device. Therefore, you should not open the links of the fake and untrusted websites. Anyhow, if you are receiving links of the reputed websites, you can open these links and you can also trust on their news.
Check Your Biases:
It is a fact that the stories which are hard to believe are usually untrue. Therefore, after receiving these stories, you should also try to verify these stories from their original resources. For example, if these stories are just like breaking news, you can verify these stories on the news channels. If you have some pre-existing views and beliefs about something and you have received a story which is confirming your pre-existing views and beliefs, you should not share it before verifying it from the authentic resources. Its reason is that there is a possibility that someone knows about your views and he has created this story just by losing your reputation. Anyhow, after verifying it from various authentic resources, you can share this story with your friends along with links of these websites.
Fake News Often Goes Viral:
If lots of people as well as companies like coursework writing services are sharing the same message and you are also getting the same message from your friends, it doesn’t mean that this message is true. Moreover, some people also try to share messages with their friends because senders of these messages are arguing them to share with their friends. Its reason is that fake news often goes viral. If you are receiving the same message from various sources, you should verify it before believing on this message. After verification, if you know that this message is fake, you should tell the sender that he is sending the fake message and he should send the messages after verifying these messages from the authentic resources. If you are constantly receiving the fake messages from a specific person, you can submit a report against him.
Verify With Other Sources:
Sometimes, there is a possibility that you can’t verify a message from your resources. Under such a situation, you should check the online resources and verify this message from these sources. News websites are also the best resources to know either specific information is true or not. If you are still not able to find out authentic resources to verify your messages, you can contact with trusted people. These trusted people should have enough knowledge regarding the niche of this message. For example, if you are getting messages about specific medicine for the curing of a specific disease, you should verify this information from a well-known doctor.
There are also some other ways to spot false information. You can spot the fake information just by taking a closer look at this information. You can also spot fake news just by looking beyond the headline of this fake news. By checking the main facts of the specific story, you can also get an idea either this story is true or false. To check the biasing of the story is also an essential way to know either this story is true or false. Anyhow, if you feel that you or your friend is in physical danger due to a specific message or story on social media, you can contact local law enforcement authorities.
