This decision probably has a lot to do with the complaint of many users that the information hoax had influenced the victory of Donald Trump . This protest has its origin in fake news related to the US elections that went viral, such as that of the director of the FBI placing a poster of Trump in his garden, the actor Denzel Washington supporting the candidacy of the tycoon (which he himself has denied and criticized) or all the infundios that were published about the candidate Hillary Clinton.
The social network has added an option in which users can report a post as fake news (currently only available in the US). It is clear that false or misrepresented information can have disastrous consequences, since many people consider that a news story is true simply because it appears on a social network or media . The credibility given to this type of information is a highly topical issue, but the influence that misinformation produces on people is something that has occurred throughout history.
One of the most symbolic cases took place in 1938 , when Orson Welles broadcast a radio program in the United States that shocked the American population. On October 30, Welles did a dramatization of the book ‘The War of the Worlds’ by HG Wells , this performance became one of the most famous moments in the history of radio. What happened is that the scene of the alien invasion was narrated as if it were a newsletter , with the intention of making the audience more impressed. But what happened was very different: panic seized millions of citizens. The most shocking thing is that the announcer had previously announced that it was a radio exhibition about a work of fiction.
It is estimated that the CBS program reached a millionaire audience, and many of these radio listeners rushed to the streets in terror, collapsing the police headquarters, thinking that the Martians were really attacking the planet and that their hours were numbered. The simple fact that the story was told through a medium, which was the informative reference of the time, meant that people did not listen to the warnings that were given up to four times that it was a radio drama and thought that it was of a real event.
Therefore, the simple fact that a story appears in a mass media does not mean that it is truthful. In a society as mediated as the current one, it is essential to have filters to avoid deception. The decision made by Facebook is totally correct . The big media have to agree and follow the path of this social network.
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