The Issue of Fake News: Causes, Impacts, and Solutions

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Law
Fake News

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Fake news is referred as emotionally-charged bits of disinformation which has become a
substantial issue in today’s digital era. As the number of news outlets increases, it has
become easier for them to constantly repeat their information which travels much faster
than compared to traditional news outlets due to the ubiquitous nature of the internet
(Lazer et al., 2018). Fake news is defined as a type of propaganda or yellow journalism that
consists of deliberate disinformation or hoaxes which are spread by news outlets through
broadcast, online social media or print outlets. The popularity of fake news resulted in
contributing to the outcomes of political or economic events that adversely affect parties on
a global stage (Allcott and Gentzkow, 2017). This essay will evaluate how and why the issue
of fake news has increased, and a recent political event will be evaluated to analyse how
fake news contributed to its outcome. This essay will also provide some possible solutions
that assist in addressing the issue of fake news.
Fake news is not a recent phenomenon; instead, it has been deeply rooted in journalism. In
1690, a newspaper in North America was shut down by British officials because they
fabricated information. In nineteenth-century, many times newspapers did not agree with
basic facts to increase their sales. In 1835, the New York Sun issued a series of newspaper
reports regarding the ‘Great Moon Hoax’ which claimed that there was an alien civilisation
on the moon. Due to this fake news, the sales of the Sun increased considerably, and it
started selling 19,000 copies from 8,000 copies (Standage, 2017). It shows that one of the
key reasons for the popularity of fake news is that it attracts viewership and companies rely
on these news articles to increase their sales. In the golden age of 24-hours television, news
channels were struggling to provide content to their audience. Since there were no major
incidents such as the hearing of O.J. Simpson, news channels started to rely on fake news to
attract more viewership to make sure that they attract more viewers (Lazer et al., 2018).
Due to the popularity of smartphone and social media sites, it has become possible for news
outlets to connect with their audience 24x7 and the competition has become fierce. Due to
this competition, news websites use ‘click-bait’ titles to attract more traffic on their websites
which resulted in promoting fake news (Zheng et al., 2018). Most people simply read the
headlines of the online news, and they start to estimate what is inside without doing their
own research. Due to creative and click-bait titles, these news articles go viral since they are
accessed by a large number of people. Political parties and powerful figures such as Donald