Comparing 'Fake News And The Internet Shell Game'

Fake news is so potentially dangerous given the fact it can spread lies through the media and influence people’s beliefs and political opinions. For instance, people can be deceived through fake news by believing what is false instead of what is true. The author of the article “Fake News and the Internet Shell Game,” Michael P. Lynch, continuously brings up the topic of deception. He states that to be deceived doesn’t mean you’re being lied to, it means you just don’t know what to think so you believe the lie instead of what is true, or in simpler terms, you follow the crowd’s opinion. This can compare to Orwell’s 1984, where the telescreens and newspapers were the source of the citizens news information and no one bothered to look for a new source or follow up with what they learned. The editors who worked in the Ministry of Truth in 1984, are comparable to the editors in our present day. They both change and edit the truth to make it sound appealing or pleasant to their audience, even if those edits are

In the eyes of teenagers and even adults, this means that the news presented on these outlets are the truth and they won’t follow up to check in with another source. For instance, in Lynch’s “Fake News” article, he brings up a case where a man named Eric Tucker tweeted a video of a bus he thought was full of Trump supporters in Austin, Texas. The video went viral before anyone could debunk it. The text states, “The example is...softened up by the more outrageous postings and innuendo, ordinary citizens can find themselves ignoring obvious alternative explanations (as Mr. Tucker admits he did) in order to post and share “news” which fits a set of background suspicions and biases.” Eric Tucker had an obvious bias against Donald Trump and wanted to sway his election