The menace of misinformation online has gained considerable media and political attention and plausible solutions for combating misinformation have often been less than satisfactory. In an environment of ubiquitous online social sharing, we contend that it is the individuals that can play a major role in halting the spread of misinformation. The communal and rapid-fire nature of many social media platforms creates the potential for errors and falsehoods – an emerging practice in conflict-related propaganda – to go viral.
The rapid growth of internet has made us able to get news and other information out faster than ever, but we’ll break it all if we don’t verify and get it right. There are two key elements: the source of a piece of content, and the content itself. These two components must be independently verified, and compared against each other to see if they tell a consistent story.
The speed of social media and the sheer
volume of user-generated content make
fact-checking even more important now
The speed of social media and the sheer volume of user-generated content make fact-checking even more important now. Social media can provide instant news faster than traditional news outlets or sources and can be a great wealth of information, but there is also an ever increasing need to verify and determine accuracy of this information. It is important to remember that fast does not always mean accurate.
How to identify credible information on social media can be challenging. Rumors and misinformation can spread quickly through social media outlets such as Twitter or Facebook. Some of the criteria used to evaluate Internet sources, such as being sceptical, asking questions, looking at the quality of the source of information, still apply in social media.
The challenges posed by internet platform monopolies require new approaches beyond antitrust enforcement. We must recognise and address these challenges as a threat to public health.
Over the last several years, we not only have gained huge success in ICT sector but also experienced several instances of cybercrimes. We have experienced misuse of social media driven by propaganda and unauthentic information. Moreover, identifying the actual source of wrongful activities remained a challenge for us. Therefore, mechanisms so far used for cyber security should be made more inclusive, and the question of rights and freedom in cyberspace needs to be duly addressed as well.