I stepped into the world of “Fake News”!
As someone who enjoys reading and getting their news from Buzzfeed News, Huffingtonpost, and The Daily Beast, which are all slightly leftist-biased and fairly reliable news sources according to the Interactive Media Bias Chart found here, I have decided to switch things up a bit and change my source of news for the day. Instead of going on to the complete opposite end of the political bias spectrum (though this news source skews slightly more to the right), I decided I’m going to go to the complete opposite in terms of overall source reliability. To be honest, I thought I was going to be reading a bunch of articles that scream out “fake news!”, as this news source is ranked near the “containing inaccurate/fabricated information” end. With all sorts of information being released on the web these days, it is extremely important for me to get my news from reliable and trustworthy sources. Being surrounded by this type of news site, I just thought I was going to be in for a good chuckle and feel entertained all day, if anything. But boy, I couldn’t have been more wrong.
- MakeTechEasier. “Should Facebook Let Users Define Fake News: Opinions: Birthday Wishes Funny, Happy Birthday Funny, Happy Birthday Meme.” Pinterest, 2018, www.pinterest.ca/pin/49398927147261250/.
My source of news for the day would be a website called Worldtruth.tv. Before reading through the numerous articles presented through their website, I decided to click on their “About Us” page, where they go on to say that they created this website with the goal being to open people’s minds to what is happening in the world around them through this term of “sacred knowledge”, and getting to know the “Truth”. Though this site supposedly contains “inaccurate/fabricated information”, the website claims everything presented is authentic, along with posted Bible quotes on the same page. Now don’t get me wrong, I am Catholic myself, but I don’t understand why you would put Bible quotes on a site that presents news, as news are supported by facts (and everyone knows science and religion don’t mix). That, along with fake ads on the website and the owner saying they have spent years researching on “religions”, such as “Bavarian Illuminati” and “Western Occultism”, already has me questioning the credibility of the website.
Once I started reading the types of articles posted on this news source, I realized I just really delved deep into one of those weird New Age/Scientology/Happy Science/ insert-newfound-religion-by-some-guy-here websites. A lot of the articles are on revealing company/government cover-ups and how the government is evil, even comparable to Satan himself, and how the mass-media is there to brainwash us (or at least that’s what I got from it). The articles themselves are very interesting and mind-blowing, with very alarming and shocking headlines, over topics that mass media really don’t talk about. One such article was the “Johnson & Johnson Found To Have Knowingly Allowed Asbestos In Their Baby Sources”, which talked about the company’s talc baby powder and the link to ovarian cancer and how the company kept selling the product, despite knowing that it contained asbestos. I personally have heard about this issue myself on the news a few years back, so it wasn’t anything too crazy or “out-there” stuff. It WAS a legit article with all credible sources, such as the World Health Organization, Consumer Safety, and a Sokolove Law group to back-up their statements. However, this article had only 67 shares. So then I clicked on the “Cover Up Showing Scientific Data Link Between Vaccines Containing Mercury and Autism” article, with over 2K views. While I don’t believe in the whole anti-vaxxer movement, I feel like with enough convincing and proof, I just might re-consider my beliefs. However, as much as this article did a good job into alarming me into how Thimerosal, a mercury based ingredient added into vaccines, is what causes autism in children and how this information was messed around with to tell the opposite, the article had no sources! None at all! If you’re going to convince me into believing why vaccines are the cause of autism and over how such cases had this information manipulated, I, at least, want to see the links or citations to those cases so I know it actually happened, and that it just wasn’t made up.
All of the articles I read for the day were all very frightening, alarming, and heck, even depressing. It was all such “negative news”. It sucked me in with its catchy headlines, making me want to read every article out there, but it definitely did not make me feel any better about myself or the world I lived in. If I continuously read and paid attention to those types of news articles, I would have soon enough turned into a skeptic. I would believe that everything the government does IS for their profit, and not for the good of the people, that they ARE out to get us, and that they are NOT to be trusted. I would question anything and everything, relying on myself only. I would live in paranoia. And while I do think it’s good to be aware of critical issues, these types of news websites would seriously not do any good for my mindset.
