In today’s day and age social media is running the world. The way news is spread around is through social media. 61% of the world uses social media. That’s 5 billion people use social media worldwide. Social media has a lot of power in the world today. The fake news it spreads easily would not be spread so rapidly through mainstream media.
Fake news causes many incidents to happen and can spread false rumors that can really harm someone.
An example of this happening was on August 20, 2022 when a TikTok was posted saying Disney was lowering the drinking age to 18 as a result of a “resort exemption.” The video got millions of views and was posted everywhere and eventually made it on the ABC 10 news.
Many people believed this and 18 – 20 year olds went into Disney world expecting to be able to acquire alcohol underage but did not succeed.
“Mouse Trap News”, a fake news account that has been posting lots of fake Disney information, is an example of social media being so powerful and tricking so many people. People will believe anything they see on social media.
On December 17, 2021 someone posted a video on TikTok and Snapchat that said that there would be school shootings and that they were going to shoot schools the next day. This began to go viral and get on the news and caused many schools around the country to close school the next day to be safe. This sparked out a huge debate about if this post was true and it led to many people being very scared in school, including me and my friends. This day led to so much stress for me by thinking today could be my last day. I believed the whole day that the school was going to be in danger of a school shooter.
Fake news has no advantage towards anyone in the U.S. It will only get people in trouble or in danger.
According to true digital park, over 85% of people on the internet have fallen for fake news. This stat is alarming. 85% of internet users can’t tell what news is fake and are just falling for clickbait.
Some people claim that 33% of all content on the internet is fake. The people that spread the fake news all over the world just want to start rumors or harm others, and gain followers. The people that are spreading this fake news have so much power and say because when people see something on the internet they instantly believe it. The internet has 61% of the world absorbed into it and is running the world.