http://www.cbc.ca/beta/news/canada/calgary/fake-facebook-accounts-calgary-alberta-politics-1.4128312
If someone who is popular on social media, isn’t really a real person, and people believe that person on many things they can influence a lot. Another thing is if a person can go and make a fake account, and gets members of parliament or legislature to follow them, people might see the fake account as friends of the MP or MLA and pay attention to what they say. An example of fake accounts affecting people is with the twitter accounts targeting Druh Farrell. People can make fake twitter accounts and cyber bully Councillor or MLA’s, and one person can make 100 fake accounts, and make it seem like 100 people hate a certain MLA or MP when really, only one person does. If a fair portion of the population has a biased view, and doesn’t view actual facts about the MLA, MP, or Councillor, then that can mean more bullying for them. People don’t see fake accounts as having a big impact, but if that account can get enough followers and people who have views the same way, they can influence a lot
Manchester Arena: 2 rules to sort truth from fiction in an attack’s confusing aftermath
I don’t think that if a major event happens, and people end up dead and wounded, that people should be posting fake things online saying, “Help! We lost him at the Manchester attack!” It’s like they’re making fun of what happened when there are real people who have lost people. For example, people posting on Facebook saying “Help I’ve lost my child in the Manchester attack” and then including a picture of a celebrity, making a joke of it. I think if you’ve actually lost someone, its not all that bad, but if you haven’t its not. Making fun of it doesn’t affect the person making fun of it, but it does affect the person who actually has lost someone because they’ve lost someone. The people making the fake posts are basically taking advantage of the terrible event and trying to see how many likes and retweets they can get because that’s what they care about
http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20170301-lies-propaganda-and-fake-news-a-grand-challenge-of-our-age
Fake news is a big thing now a days, and people are learning more about it and students are being taught about it. Its sad to see that 64% of American adults said made up news stories were causing confusion among them. The bad thing with fake news is that if it can get thousands to millions of people to believe it, then it grows and more people will believe that the fake news is true. This can tie in with the first paragraph, in being that a fake account can make fake news and get a large amount of people to view the same ideas. Another thing is that people could just read the first few words in an article “2 dead in car crash” and blame the automobile industry, when if they read more, the driver actually was to blame. Or news sources change the story and make up their own things to make the story more interesting, creating alternative facts, making the public believe falsehoods. Things to look for when finding information is to use sources that you know give facts and don’t make up stories,