FAKE NEWS, ACCESSIBILITY & FREEDOM OF THOUGHT
By: Nick Rhodes
Tags: Freedom Of Speech, Fake News, Corruption, Freedom, Politics

FAKE NEWS, ACCESSIBILITY & FREEDOM OF THOUGHT

Over the last few years we have seen huge news growth. The speed with which information can travel the world has never been higher. The ease with which news can be spread globally is incredible and frightening at the same time. What are the disadvantages of being able to create news so easily and make it accessible to anyone?

The power we have in our hands is to say whatever we want, it’s up to us and our morality to decide to report an event as it really happened or how we want other people to think it happened, shaping their ideas and thoughts. , spreading ignorance and disinformation. Precisely because the phenomenon of “fake news” is unfortunately increasingly practiced, what was once a point in our favor (accessibility, speed and ease) is turning against us, constituting a global problem. Analyzing this dilemma is the right step to get to its root and truly understand what lies behind it, also delving into other interconnected situations, such as the repression of free speech and how it afflicts our democracy.

Obviously the main means of spreading fake news are social networks, where anyone has access and has the freedom to publish all the content they want, without too many restrictions. In the last few, platforms where users can reach and read information from all over the world have had a very large, perhaps excessive expansion. But can we really trust everything we read and see? Absolutely not. I remember you that social media were born as tools to share their photos and passions, creating a profile that can represent you and give you the opportunity to interact with other users. Over the years, expansion has been inevitable, they have become platforms for online shopping, even to look for work, create profits with sponsorships, and consequently have become channels for global information. But although everyone has the right to express their thoughts, one must be able to recognize an opinion from a fact, and therefore distinguish a platform created for personal expression from one created specifically for the dissemination of news. The ease with which we can all become “journalists” by sharing news does not make the population more educated, but rather a group of gullible sheep that bite whatever they have in front of them. Staying on the subject of freedom of expression, as I have already said, everyone has the opportunity to share what they want on social networks. Logically, information found in the media has a different weight from one present in a special channel for their dissemination. But, while in social networks we have achieved the independence of saying what we want, can these news sites also say the same? Is there some sort of external “conditioning” present? We can’t say for sure, but we’ve seen several examples of repression of shared content in the past. Therefore, this freedom is not taken for granted. Politics has always been a very delicate subject, where in order to write about it it is almost always necessary to take a position, and therefore go against someone. This process can often be criticized, or even worse, threatened. Every political article is propaganda, it highlights facts for or against some party. What if this party doesn’t want to be put in a bad light? Psychological terrorism. Powerful people can do what they want, frightening the smallest pawns and taking away this “freedom of thought” that our democracy prides itself on having. The repression and oppression caused by fear of an article or news makes a country corrupt, therefore, almost surrealistically, we have more freedom on social media. This phenomenon that has always been present is creating a real “information crisis”, manipulating what must or must not be read, monopolizing shared materials. In a democracy, everyone should have the opportunity to express themselves as they see fit and this terrorism takes our society back by decades. People are highly influenced by what they read, and manipulating articles, pointing the readers in certain directions as a result will also partially change collective thinking.

But, isn’t it precisely this excessive freedom that makes social media swarm with fake news? On the other hand, as Winston Churchill said “the best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter.”

Our society is full of ignorance and falsehood, which, in the field of journalism and news, turn into hoaxes. Is freedom of thought, which everyone is proud of, therefore good or bad?