29/11/16 - Here's the truth: 'fake news' is not social media's fault (24)

https://www.theguardian.com/media/greenslade/2016/nov/23/heres-the-truth-fake-news-is-not-social-medias-fault

This article is about how social media sites such as Facebook had nothing to do with the fact that 'Fake News' became a thing. The article, firstly, starts off with talking about Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg about how he first denied that fake news started through the use of Facebook but now, he started to talk about how they have been working on ways how to prevent this from happening. In addition, the writer talks about how fake news has been misleading and very effective; he believes that with the fake news, Donald Trump has become president and the UK have left the EU. However, what they do not understand is that this way all done by the audience themselves. The reason why Fake News became a big thing is because the audience started to believe with everything they had read and didn't even bother checking if it accurate or not.

• None of the 500 or so students currently studying journalism at City voted for the motion. Indeed, only one of them appears to have attended the meeting (and voted against the ban).
• It’s not the fault of social media (you can’t blame the platform), but it is a consequence of it, because lies can be passed on so swiftly and indiscriminately.
• Yet, on Facebook, a number of people - including current and former journalists - misread the stories about the vote and began to criticise City’s journalism students for doing something they had not done.

In my opinion, I disagree with this article and believe that social media are the ones who are at fault. The reason why I believe this because, firstly, if someone has been spreading fake news, the company are the only ones who have the power of preventing this from happening and if they knew about this being a caution, they should've acted upon this quicker rather than having everyone blaming each other for the consequences. In the article, it makes a comment which I strongly agree with - It’s not the fault of social media (you can’t blame the platform), but it is a consequence of it, because lies can be passed on so swiftly and indiscriminately. This is true in the sense that they can't predict the future, but they should've acted quicker so it would spread to a lot of users. Therefore, I do believe they are at fault.