Well, the people have spoken. The President of the United States of America will be none other than Donald J. Trump. The electoral college wasn't exactly close but by no means was a blowout. I am sure you have all seen the articles and petitions blowing up left and right about eliminating the Electoral College. This coming after what appears to be more than 1.5 million more voters voting for Hillary Clinton in this year's election. So it seems that the question of how our election system works is called into question, but all of this is depending on who you talk to and apparently to what you read. You see recently I have seen a surge of a particular article claiming the Hillary, in fact, did not win the popular vote. Yes, you read that correctly. The only problem is the article is fake.

Now, I have been aware of these websites perpetuating articles claiming things like this before. The big give away would be the fact that the article comes from "wordpress.com." You see, Wordpress is an open source website creation tool. Meaning anyone can make a website and put whatever they want on it. I am not saying that is bad, but it should put into question the validity of what is stated on said websites. That is the problem, many people did not check the source and it spread as fast as a viral cat video, only this time the result is less cute. I have seen similar things to this in the past, one of the worst ones I have ever seen is the "Furious Muslim Confronts Cashier About Flag Pin." It is a story about a Muslim woman furiously demanding a cashier to remove her flag pin because it made her uncomfortable. The second I saw it I knew it was a fake story, but, giving the person who shared it some credit, I decided to look it up so that I was fully informed before calling the article fake. One search on snopes.com, a website that researches stories on the internet for their validity, got me my answer. The article was not only false, but a continued legend passed on with varying characters. The legend has changed from a Muslim woman to a Jewish woman, to a Canadian man, to an Australian, and so many more. The is false beyond belief but as false as it is, I see it pop up on my Facebook timeline about a couple times a year. The Facebook news culture is harmful and I am not the only one who thinks so.

The story Trump's popular victory gained traction and soon it was shared far and wide. I originally thought this was just perpetuated by some Facebook user who happened to get the article to go viral, which might have helped, but in reality when you typed in "Final election numbers," Google had the Article from 70news on Wordpress as the top result. This is likely due to an algorithm in Google's system but is still not something Google should be proud of at all. More and more major news outlets began to report on the fake news problem both Google and Facebook were facing. Many started to blame them for perpetuating the uninformed opinions causing the election results. This opinion was not held by just general news outlets but by President Obama and, for lack of a better term, his adversary Edward Snowden. Both addressed the growing fake news situation. Obama said, “If we can’t discriminate between serious arguments and propaganda, then we have problems," and Snowden called it, "...a sad indictment of our democracy." The anger built insofar that people called out Facebook and Google of rigging the election. That seems to be pretty extreme, as Facebook has been recently criticized for censoring and withholding conservative news. The fact remains, things need to change.

Mark Zuckerberg and Executives at Google have agreed to pull advertising from the websites that are found to be inherently false. This will probably help to an extent, but it won't change the fact that these things get shared and pushed through as the truth. It seems there needs to be a better solution; what that solution is, I cannot tell you. Censoring the articles completely seems to be a breach of Freedom of Speech while spreading them as truth seems to be libel. The solution on the corporate end might be a challenge that will take a lot longer than any solution an Odyssey writer like me can come up with in a week.

While I cannot offer a definitive solution, what I can offer is something we can do. Check the source of articles before we share them and inform people by dropping a link if their sources validity is called into question. As you read this I am sure you ask why I have some many friends on my Facebook that share opinions I clearly disagree with? I have them because many of these people are truly my friends even though we may disagree politically. I remember growing up with them, playing football, eating lunch, and having class when politics did not matter. Those people have not changed, their views politically are probably just more apparent. A problem with so many people in society is a growing hatred for people who differ from them politically. I know I have been unfriended due to my views, and many of my friends have too. According to a study done by Pew Research Center, "Republicans and Democrats are also substantially more likely to say they prefer living in a community where most people share their political views."The study goes on to show that politically, both Republicans and Democrats are swaying farther and farther away from political-center. This means they are disagreeing more and more and finding themselves in communities with people they agree with. The danger of this is a community without political diversity falls victim to true positive discussion and never see's arguments from the other side.

When you see something you disagree with, don't just comment in anger without facts to back it up, research and hold positive political discussions. I am not saying that sharing articles that withhold the truth should be illegal, I find things that are false entertaining a lot of the time. The Onion and many other political satirists do amazing and entertaining work, but we need to be aware of what it is we are sharing. We need to take things like the funny articles about Donald Trump's recent heart attack and Hillary Clinton being a shapeshifter for what they are, funny false stories that give us a good laugh. We need to be aware of where things come from, even my article. I encourage you to fact check my statements and links I provide. It is important to keep everyone informed of the truth. Donald Trump may not have won the popular vote, but when we just get angry and unfriend that person, we become part of the problem.