If you believe everything you read, then you may have thought Pope Francis endorsed Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton had an affair with Yoko Ono, and thousands of people eschewed both presidential candidates and voted for a gorilla instead.
And you’d be wrong in all instances.
For the last three years, I’ve been teaching Social Media Communication at the University of Pittsburgh at Bradford. It’s given me an opportunity to teach the good, the bad and the ugly of social media to students who have used it mostly to post pictures of themselves, their friends and their lunch.
I love teaching the class because there is always something topical to discuss, including how we use social media to consume news. According to a May 2016 report by the Pew Research Center, six in 10 Americans get news from social media. They’re using Reddit, Facebook and Twitter, as well as Tumblr, Instagram and YouTube.
This presidential election gave us even more to discuss in class, including the proliferation of fake news on social. Just days after the election, traditional media outlets, including The New York Times, were speculating whether fake news contributed to the outcome of the presidential election. It’s unlikely that we’ll get a definitive answer but likely that it may have swayed some voters on both sides of the political chasm.
In the old days — the days before social media — the only time we could expect a fake news story was April Fool’s Day, which would typically include a line at the bottom announcing the story’s falsity. However, the recent spate of fake news on social has taken on an eerily authentic look.
Perhaps the most believable, which showed up in many of our Facebook feeds, was a meme of a younger Donald Trump with the quote: “If I were to run, I’d run as a Republican. They’re the dumbest group of voters in the country. They love anything on Fox News. I could lie and they’d eat it up. I bet my numbers would be terrific.” Alleged attribution at the bottom made it look like the quote appeared in People magazine in 1998.
However, he never said that.
A tweet on an account that looked like it belonged to Rudy Giuliani said, “We cannot let Blacks and Hispanics alone decide this election for Hillary! Everyone deserve a say. All others, heads to polls NOW! #Trump 16.”
Giuliani never tweeted that.
A photo of Denzel Washington circulating the social sphere included the headline “Denzel Washington Switches to Trump Shocks Hollywood, Speaks out Against Obama.” Another featured a photo of Clinton with the headline: “Yoko Ono: I had an Affair with Hillary Clinton in the ‘70s.” A third showed a picture of Pope Francis, claiming “Pope Francis Shocks World, Endorses Donald Trump for President, Releases Statement – WTOE 5 News.”
No, no and no.
The day after the election, one of my students said she saw on social that Harambe, the gorilla at the Cincinnati Zoo who dragged a toddler through his enclosure, got 11,000 write-in votes for president. We learned a few days later that wasn’t true either when it was debunked on CNN.
Mark Zuckerberg, co-founder of Facebook, says the idea of fake news swaying anyone in the presidential election is “pretty crazy.” But is it?
Let’s go back to the Pew study. The people getting their news on social tend to be younger, 18- to 29-year olds who tend to shun more traditional news sources and may not look at social media content with as critical an eye as those of us who still place more value on traditional news media.
But it’s not just age. Those of us who use social know content moves at an amazing and alarming pace. We see something, post it or share it, then move on, sometimes without really examining its truth or value.
So, what does this all mean for news consumers? It means the onus is on us, now more than ever before, to be ever vigilant. We can’t believe everything we read, and we need to pay more attention to the information’s source and delve into it further if it looks awry.
We also shouldn’t contribute to the problem. By sharing fake news — no matter how outlandish — we become part of the problem. We share with our friends and followers, then they share and they share. According to BuzzFeed News, the 20 top-performing fake election stories generated 8.7 million shares, reactions and comments on Facebook.
If you’d like to learn more, stop by some Wednesday night at 6. We’re in Blaisdell Hall. We’d love to have you.
(Cercone is the executive director of communications and marketing at Pitt-Bradford. Formerly, she was city editor at The Era.)
