A few weeks ago, it was revealed that Facebook had unwittingly sold millions of users’ data to a British research group connected with Donald Trump’s campaign for president. Cambridge Analytica then targeted swing voters with advertisements that portrayed Trump positively and his opponent negatively. The fiasco is being investigated on both sides of the Atlantic for violations of campaign finance laws.
In the meantime, many voters are worried about how they might have been affected by social media ads and fake news. Biased media has existed since the birth of the newspaper industry, but it is easier to access politically agreeable information today than ever before. Disinformation that is actively falsified and misinformation, which is unintentionally retold inaccurately, are easy to believe. But citizens are responsible for informing themselves about issues that matter to them. Here are a few ways to repel fake news and make good decisions about elections.
1. Find a few trustworthy news sources
The best way to know what’s going on is to search for sources that publish accurate information and download its app so you get news instantly. There is a plethora of media organizations that are responsible in what they write. For high-minded work, a newspaper is the best way to go. The left-leaning Washington Post is free to students for the first year, and the center-left New York Times and conservative Wall Street Journal, which is also one of the best business news outlets, are four dollars a month.
For free sources, there are television outlets like more-or-less unbiased CNN, right-wing FOX News, and NBC and its affiliate, leftist MSNBC. Online resources include liberal Vox.com and Slate, which are quite analytical. Conservative sites like Breitbart are a bit murkier and often venture into a few -isms, but they can offer a good supplement to neutral sources. Lastly, if you want your news while you’re driving, the only radio sources out there are NPR and the occasional BBC Radio wave that makes its way across the pond. There are also a few apps that compile information from trusted media.
2. Don't believe everything you read on social media
Most young people get their news exclusively from social media rather than trustworthy sources. Malevolent actors like Cambridge Analytica and Russian trolls believed to have impacted the election exploit this weakness in people’s defenses against false information. There are easy ways to protect against these groups and individuals, primarily by not following anybody you don’t know or that isn’t verified and by following real news sources like those listed above so that your timeline contains true stories and good analysis.
In this way, you can also verify ads that might pop up to discredit a certain candidate or movement; if the Economist (a conservative-ish British magazine that reports on global affairs) didn’t write about it, for example, it’s probably not true.
3. Get out of your partisan bubble
It isn’t just Russian goons who wants you to believe things that aren’t true. Online activists will often say anything to get voters behind their candidates. The partisan media has a tendency to publish things that are partly true. They are also fond of throwing up a few sham statistics and using a few one-off cases that appear to demonstrate how significant a problem is, like this Daily Kos article that claims immigrants in Texas report crime 40% less than they did before Donald Trump’s election (based on a single study conducted by the Houston Chronicle) and then mentioned an incident in which one particular immigrant cited his fear of “los racistas” in not reporting a robbery. Perhaps immigrants are reporting fewer crimes. But the statistics provided are only out of a big city, where it is harder to establish trust than in smaller communities. The study cannot be extrapolated to the whole of Texas, as the Daily Kos article attempts to do, much less the entire country. To ensure that you don't fall for this trick, try to avoid the most overtly partial sources.
Finding an honest source of information can be hard. Finding any one news outlet that tells the truth 100% of the time is almost impossible; they are operated by humans who make mistakes in their writings. But having up-to-date information on what’s going on is invaluable when it comes to making decisions, especially in elections. In Ireland, where a referendum is being held to lift a ban on abortion, there has been an upsurge in fake accounts on social media. It will be a good indicator of how important real versus fake news is.
