Academicians and experts consider every piece of information based on its source but the general public is quick to accept information on face value, making it gullible. It is this gullibility that has made fake news, mainly spread through social media extremely powerful and also dangerous. Information is power, and power can be used as a weapon for good and for evil. The right information in the right hand can be used to inform and shape society while the wrong and perhaps false information in the wrong hands can be used in a destructive manner, almost akin to terrorism. Currently, social media has risen to be one of the most powerful modes of dissemination of information. The bulk of the power is premised on the ability to reach millions across the world almost contemporaneously. Social media has been used to undertake a lot of good, but recent events have shown that it can also be used negatively and destructively to spread false information. Major adverse world events today have been distorted or adversely affected by fake news spread through social media. Hence, spreading fake news on social media has numerous risks to the public as it can affect political decisions, can negatively impact the public’s understanding on health-related issues as well as can disturb the economy market worldwide.
Impact on Political Decisions
Modern democracy is adversarial in nature resulting in a certain level of competitiveness as per Kellam and Stein (2016), but according to Allcott and Gentzkow (2017) ‘the leader takes it all’ approach raises the competitiveness to acrimony. When fake news is spread using the leading social networks in the USA as indicated by Sullivan (2017), and augmented using Russian Twitter bots as reflected in Swaine (2018), the acrimonious competition absolutely compromises the electoral process.
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The concept of one citizen having one vote and being able to freely cast that vote without any undue influence. Traditionally, this undue influence used to come from despotic leaders who would either directly or indirectly compel citizens to vote in a certain direction (Kellam & Stein, 2016). The developed world, including the USA and Europe, in an effort to prevent this kind of despotic leadership, made freedom of information a fundamental right. Freedom of information, freedom of expression, and freedom of the media worked very well for these developed countries, creating democracies that have lasted for centuries for the first time in the history of the world (Kellam & Stein, 2016). Unfortunately, the advent and proliferation of social media in the twenty-first century is making freedom of information a liability instead of an asset from a political perspective, mainly due to fake news.
The Trump versus Hillary Perspective
The 2016 presidential elections were among the most acrimonious in the history of the USA with much of the blame for the acrimony being borne by fake news, through social media. The US presidential electoral system is adversarial in nature and, therefore, expected to have a level of acrimony, more so because of ‘the winner takes all’ perspective (Allcott & Gentzkow, 2017). The basic idea behind adversarial elections is to ensure that every possible issue relating to the candidates is discussed to enable the election of the best candidate. A lot of information about the candidates themselves and the ideas they wish to bring in their leadership is shared and discussed. In the 2016 elections, however, a carefully orchestrated fake news social media campaign was launched against Hillary Clinton and in favor of Donald Trump. The campaign was mainly carried out through Facebook and Twitter, arguably the two largest social media networks in the USA and even across the globe (Sullivan, 2017). A fake news story would be developed using fake internet sites circumspectly designed to ape mainstream media such as CNN or Fox News. The link to the fake news site would then be disseminated through Facebook and Twitter by a dedicated team who would ensure that it reached as many Americans as possible (Allcott & Gentzkow, 2017). In some cases, Russian Twitter Bots would be used to show that such tweets have been retweeted by millions of Twitter users thus increasing their credibility (Swaine, 2018). The outcome of the fake news campaign was to discredit the very important process of selecting the president of the United States, one of the most stable democracies in the world.
As a result of the ensuing crisis, President Trump has seen it necessary to defend himself, once again using the same avenue of social media. In his tweets, he accuses most mainstream media houses of being fake news, more so when they publish stories he is uncomfortable with. So prominent has the presidential twitter tirades become that he is sometimes referred to as the commander-in-tweet (Fitzpatrick, 2018). Unfortunately, labeling mainstream media houses as fake media has blurred the real problem of fake news and its impact in America thus standing in the way of having it resolved properly.
The Brexit Perspective
Mariya Gabriel, the European Union (EU) Commissioner in charge of Digital Economy and Society is quoted to have said that “ Fake news is a direct threat to the very foundations of our democratic society. ” (Danzig, 2017). The EU had risen to be the most powerful economic union in the world and had also contributed to the development of the global economy. However, fake news began to spread about the EU in general and the problem of an influx of immigrants in Europe and how it was affecting the European Labor market. The amounts of monies being spent on immigrants, the amount individual nations were spending on the Union were also consistent messages. Russian Twitter Bots care circumspectly utilized to create disenchantment among European Union members until the UK decided to have a referendum on leaving the EU, commonly referred as Brexit.
The primary idea behind the Brexit vote was not to leave the Brexit but rather reaffirm the UK’s commitment to the EU. In the rundown of the Brexit vote, almost all commentators were unanimous that the vote would be overwhelming to remain in the Union. However, a few days to the vote, a resurgent of fake news about the UK having a net migration of 333,000 to its detriment and the UK sending up to £350m per week to the EU intensified (BBC, 2017). So powerful was the fake news campaign in the last days towards the vote that the overwhelming lead of the pro-EU side was eroded. Eventually, the anti-EU group won the Brexit vote by a slim margin of slightly over 1% throwing both the UK and the EU into fake news instigated crisis.
The Public Health Social Media Fake News Impact
The combination of fake news, faked expertise, and healthcare issues have become a matter of life and death as per The Telegraph (2015) in spite of the fact that according to Gleissner (2017), most people go to the internet with the positive intent of learning how to remain healthy. The inability to differentiate between fake and real health-related news has led internet users to make the dangerous decisions in spite of their positive intentions (Mackey & Liang, 2013; Fox, 2017).
The Anorexia Perspective
According to The Telegraph. (2015), a dangerous quote in a pro-anorexia website reads: “ I’ve reached a point where I can go without food for three or four days. You can do it too, but it will take discipline and hard work .” The site is led by a 24-year-old Briton named Jade who was diagnosed with anorexia at the age of 9 years. Instead of advising her followers to seek medical attention and seek to fight the anorexia, she advises them to embrace it. In her words, anorexia is a lifestyle, not a disease. Jade joins a list of fake health experts who have become prominent in social media by spreading fake news and information about healthcare subjects (Gleissner, 2017).
Millions of fake news health articles can be found on social media across the world. There are also thousands of related videos on YouTube and Flickr where credible sounding individuals, some of whom even post fake credentials tell lies about important healthcare issues thus misleading the public. Anorexia is not a lifestyle but a dangerous physiological and psychological disorder whose full names is Anorexia nervosa (Schmidt et al., 2017). Among the common complications related to it are osteoporosis, heart problems, infertility complete with cessation of menses and in extreme cases death. When fake media makes people believe that anorexia is a good thing as it is just a form of lifestyle, it is pushing them towards any of the associated complications and even an early grave.
The Anti-Vaccination Perspective
Another dangerous trend in the world today is a powerful social media campaign against vaccination. Vaccinations, more so for children are critical to modern public health in general and the individual health of citizens. From a public health perspective, vaccination works best when many members of a certain population are vaccinated under the herd immunity principle (Pollard et al., 2015). Even a few individuals remaining unvaccinated creates a risk for the rest of the community. Therefore, public health interests dictate that as many people as possible be vaccinated against dangerous communicable diseases such as the flu and tuberculosis. Unfortunately, social media crusaders started spreading fake news to discourage people from vaccinations for themselves and their children. A common and very effective fake news rallying call is that vaccination caused autism in children. Conspiracy theorists have posted what appear to be well-researched videos messages on the dangers of vaccinations or even arguing that vaccinations do not work. Dedicated anti-vaccination websites have also been launched (Fox, 2017). Such fake news videos and articles discourage people from getting vaccinated thus, leaving them and their children susceptible to dangerous yet preventable diseases.
The Commercial Health-Based Perspective
The healthcare issue has also been commercialized in two main perspectives. The first is the use of social media to spread fake news about commercial products being raced with dangerous viruses such as Ebola, a good example being the famous Mazaa drink as per Express News Service (2016). Such fake news can be extremely damaging as even those who would normally not believe social media stories would rather not risk contracting Ebola. Further, social media fake news has been used to advertise and market fake drugs in pretense of protecting the populace from the vagaries of capitalism. Online advertisements by individuals claiming to be experts have become rampant and misleading. In related cases, drugs are marketed through online guerilla marketing approaches by an unqualified individual. A casual approach to medical supplies through social media fake news can have catastrophic health outcomes (Mackey & Liang, 2013).
Commercial Impact of Social Media Fake News
The third risk of fake news spreading in social media is its huge potential to adversely affect the economic market-place. In the current information age, there is increased reliance on the internet for information including information about investment and other pecuniary-related decisions. Social media fake news has had an adverse effect on how people invest their monies and has also affected the profitability of companies.
The Taxation Perspective
Governments rely on taxes as the main source of income, but they have been adversely affected by this issue. Fake news has contributed exponentially to tax-collection problems with many people being misled by fake news through social media and Phishing’ emails & text messages about taxation and related issues. The issue is exacerbated by the fact that even leading figures such as the US president Donald Trump have been involved in propagating tax-related fake news on social media. A good example of the same is the fake media story relating to Ireland’s corporate tax which was propagated by Trump, among others yet confirmed by Irish authorities to be fake news. Similarly, there has also been a lot of fake news relating to the current tax-reforms in the USA leading to a lot of confusion about the correct state of deferral taxation.
The Investment Perspective
Another area that has been adversely affected by fake news is the investment market. The modern investment market relies on the internet and has thus become volatile and extremely malleable as investors can make and implement investment decisions in real-time. Fake news about investment opportunities can have major detrimental effects as investors react to it without realizing that it is fake. For example, according to Domm (2013), a fake story about an explosion injuring then president Barack Obama adversely affected US stock markets. Billions of dollars can be lost to the economy in the aftermath of believable fake news that rattles investors more so when the fake news is propagated by popular social media users. Further, according to Roberts (2017), a fake story about the death of Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin caused a crush in the cryptocurrency that resulted in the loss of over US$4 billion.
Corporate Reputation Perspective
Finally, fake news has also been used to attack businesses leading to losses amounting to billions of dollars based on accusations that their products were detrimental to human health. According to Fruen (2017), accusations that Pepsi products are contaminated with HIV positive blood resulted in great losses for the company through lost business. Similarly, accusations that Pizzerias was involved in child trafficking also cost the company immensely in revenues and reputation (Kang, 2016). Both the Pepsi and Pizzerias accusations were fake news propagated through social media yet caused great damage.
Conclusion
Spreading false news via web-based networking media has various dangers to the general population as it can influence political choices, can contrarily affect the general population's understanding on wellbeing-related issues and in addition, can disrupt the economic stability around the world. With the rapid development of information and communication technologies (ICT), digital information is becoming widely available on all electronic devices, and social networking websites are acting as catalysts for the dissemination of fake news. The spreading of fake news is very dangerous and could lead to many other negative implications. Joint-effort between the government, businesses and the public is necessary to countermeasure this issue to minimize its adverse effects. Above all, creating and disseminating fake news amounts to lying which is a sin against God: “ Surely Allah does not guide him aright who is a liar, ungrateful .” (Surah az-Zumar 39:3) and should thus be avoided.
Recommendation
The adverse effects of social media fake news as outlined above are getting out of hand thus requiring expeditious and effective mitigation. The first line in mitigation is creating and propagating the ability to detect fake news on social through platforms such as Hoaxy. The ability to differentiate fake news from real news can help extenuate in misinformation. The government should also create laws and proper enforcement mechanisms to discourage and eventually curb creation or dissemination of fake news. The flagging and debunking of fake news can also help prevent or reduce its adverse effects on the public. Citizens should also be educated in how to detecting fake news including measures such as cross-checking information and checking the sources. With most of social media fake news being spread through mobile phones, authenticating mobile apps can also help mitigate in the fake news problem.
Taking a commercial perspective, businesses must be on the lookout to prevent and mitigate on negative effects of fake news. Early intervention is most effective thus businesses should scan social media using software application so as to learn about fake news that could affect them at the earliest and use countermeasures. Further, believability on fake news is created using a basis of truth hence the need for secrecy of all sensitive information. Major companies should keep in touch with their stakeholders through social networking and blogging as anti-counterfeiting tools.
References
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