Assignment Prompt & Instructions
**175 words each**
Post 1
The global phenomenon of fake news refers to all the misinformation that is continuously being distributed and shared without regulation under the guise of free speech and behind the anonymity of a keyboard.
I am constantly impacted by fake news. It makes me distrustful of anything I see on the internet put out by anyone that I don't know personally, and rightfully so, because of how many things out there are actually fake. For example, a year ago, I was watching a video that featured Elon Musk speaking on a podcast. I thought that what he was saying was unusual, but I shared it with a few friends, and they thought it was odd. Then, one of my friends pointed out that it was actually an AI voice over and that it wasn't actually him talking. I felt pretty embarrassed that I was duped, and let my other friends know to disregard that video because it was actually fake.
Fake news has impacted politics because people who are unable to differentiate between fake and reliable news reports and they make decisions based on false information.
The timing of correcting fake news is important because if it is not dealt with soon enough, then many people have already viewed and shared the news as factual, making the needed correction nearly impossible.
Post 2
Fake news is the intentional spread of false information worldwide, often boosted by social media algorithms that favor content driven by strong emotions like fear or anger rather than facts (Vosoughi et al., 2018). This creates a global vulnerability, allowing disinformation networks to influence public opinion on a large scale.
I've seen firsthand how fake online worlds affect my daughters through their social media use. Many influencers share heavily edited, unrealistic images of their bodies, making these digital illusions seem real. This kind of visual "fake news" directly influences my daughters, distorting their view of a healthy body and creating impossible standards. Watching them deal with these false expectations has shown me how misleading online content can really harm young women's self-esteem and mental health (Choukas-Bradley et al., 2022).
Fake news harms democracy by weakening trust in institutions. Misinformation often targets certain groups, using them to create divisions, distort common understanding, and unfairly sway election results (Rhodes, 2024).
The timing of correcting falsehoods is important because of the psychological "continued influence effect." When people hear false information, it quickly becomes part of how they see things. If fact-checking is delayed, fake news can take hold (Brashier et al., 2021). Even after a clear correction is issued, the original false story often still subtly affects people's perceptions, since undoing a built-up bias requires much more mental effort than accepting the initial lie.
**References**
Brashier, N. M., Pennycook, G., Berinsky, A., & Rand, D. (2021, January 25). _PNAS_. Timing matters when correcting fake news. https://www.pnas.org/doi/pdf/10.1073/pnas.2020043118
Choukas-Bradley, S., Roberts, S. R., Maheux, A. J., & Nesi, J. (2022a, July 16). _The perfect storm: A developmental–sociocultural framework for the role of social media in adolescent girls’ body image concerns and mental health – clinical child and Family Psychology Review_. SpringerLink. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10567-022-00404-5
Rhodes, S. (2024, July 19). _Narrow margins and misinformation: The impact of sharing fake news in close contests_. MDPI. https://www.mdpi.com/2076-0760/13/11/571
VOSOUGHI, S., Roy, D., & Aral, S. (2018, March 9). _The spread of true and false news online | science_. Science. https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.aap9559