People Think Outside Groups Are Planting Fake News

People interviewed for a poll by Monmouth University believe that mainstream media and social media platforms alike are threatened by outside groups and agents trying to plant fake news stories. While this shows that many people think there’s a profound problem with intentionally disseminated disinformation, the data does not show how good the respondents think the media was at rooting out fake news.

This in mind, on social media, anybody can write or forward anything. There is no fact checking prior to publication. If at all, posts or comments are taken down after publication, often because they are in breach of platform rules. On the contrary, most journalistic news outlets have verification procedures in place in order to filter out factual errors before publication.

While legacy news outlets often entertain separate fact-checking departments, such measures are relatively new to social media platforms or, if installed, cannot keep up with the wealth of content produced by users.