Social media and fake news

General aspects

The 21st century saw a rise in popularity of fake news. This is due to the further spread of the Internet and the development of communication technologies. When the Internet became available to the public in the 1990s, its main purpose was accessing information. Over time, the Internet has grown and developed, and nowadays, it contains a huge amount of information, with more coming in every day. Users can manipulate this information by adding their own opinion or knowledge on the topic, by modifying texts on open-source sites, by creating their own content, etc. However, this also allows the Internet to provide platforms for false and misleading material.

User-centred bias

Today, the capacity to mislead is enhanced by the widespread use of social media. This is because social media facilitates the creation and sharing of information and ideas. The content made available on social media platforms is primarily user-generated, meaning that users post personal experiences, creations, preferences, etc. Since it is personal, information of this kind can become difficult to assess objectively, and therefore, the message conveyed by this type of content is often subjective and not entirely reliable...