Authenticity

Before the times of Google and Facebook most people had a sense of security keeping real life separate from the online world, your anonymity was important. With the newer social media it has given accessibility to sharing news articles and information in a blink of an eye, and the yearning for truth is what the vast population wants and needs. In todays world the people that can go public with their identities, tell their stories and stand up for their beliefs are considered to be looked up to as leaders. While the people hiding behind their words, and wanting anonymity, are looked at to be untrustworthy. Most times its not as easy to see between onside and the other, and with all the news that's out in the world today its very easy to get pulled into a story that has no fact backing it.

## Definition

Authenticity is the concept of being true to oneself. Todays cyberculture encompasses the need for pure facts while trying to uncover the anonymity of the person behind the facts. In the twenty first century, the hunt for accuracy is extremely high, since there is so much online that is not true, while validating the person behind the facts is someone trustworthy.

## Election

Authenticity has been a big problem in the 2016 presidential election. Cambridge Analytica has been accused of gathered data from Facebook to make fake news stories to sway the minds of voters. Depraving news to voter without their knowledge is a denial to them when making their own free informed choice, since they believe to be voting on things they think are real but in fact are not.

Former employee, Christopher Wylie, from Cambridge has confirmed the allegations were true, they've "absolutely planted fake news" to influence the election of 2016. He goes on to explain that there was a personality app that was created to pull data from the user on Facebook who downloaded it. From there they related the answers given from the user to their actual profiles to infer on which topics they could use to sway the minds through fake news articles. To create an even bigger pool of information that could reach all of Facebook, whether using the app or not, the app was allowed to crawl through all of the users friends. Even though the quiz was not taken Cambridge was able to infer on interests from the likes and posts of all the friends.

## References

1. Krotoski, Aleks. “Online Identity: Is Authenticity or Anonymity More Important?” *The Guardian*, Guardian News and Media, 19 Apr. 2012, www.theguardian.com/technology/2012/apr/19/online-identity-authenticity-anonymity.
2. “'Cambridge Analytica Planted Fake News'.” *BBC News*, BBC, 20 Mar. 2018, www.bbc.com/news/video\_and\_audio/headlines/43472347/cambridge-analytica-planted-fake-news.
3. “Facebook Suspends Trump Campaign's Data Analytics Team, Cambridge Analytica, for Harvesting Private Information of 50 Million Users.” *BetaNews*, 17 Mar. 2018, betanews.com/2018/03/17/facebook-suspends-cambridge-analytica/#comments.

1. ↑ http://www.bbc.com/news/video\_and\_audio/headlines/43472347/cambridge-analytica-planted-fake-news
2. ↑ http://www.bbc.com/news/video\_and\_audio/headlines/43472347/cambridge-analytica-planted-fake-news