In addition to political issues, one of the main goals of Fake News is advertising revenue and monetization of the site. For this reason, they can be in any area
Created precisely with the aim of spreading false information in the most diverse segments and areas, Fake News has great viral power and lying news can spread quickly.
Recent approval by the TSE (Superior Electoral Court) of the resolution that expands the court’s police power and allows the removal of repeated false or decontextualized content that has already been the subject of decisions to be taken down by the Court’s plenary, reduces the time for the takedown of Fake News on social media. The decision is yet another way to prevent the population from spreading insidious information.
Although the power of persuasion of this news is greater in populations with less education and who depend on social networks to obtain information, false communications also have the power to reach less lay people and their content can be related to subjects from the most diverse areas.
“In addition to political issues, one of the main objectives of Fake News is advertising revenue, monetization of the site where clicks generate financial return. For this reason, fake news can be in any area. Mainly cases of great social repercussion are often the subject of Fake News, such as the tragedy of Brumadinho. Curiosity generates more search for information and malicious websites take advantage of it”, declares Ticianne Perdigão, coordinator of the digital journalism course at Unyleya, one of the first 100% EAD Higher Education Institutions in Brazil.
According to the coordinator, the ease of creating content on the web is one of the main reasons for the increase in false information. The growth of social media has also boosted its existence. “We have to be very careful with the content we have access to, especially in messaging apps, since there is no monitoring. Social networks, on the other hand, allow users to report the wrong information, making it difficult to spread.”
Finally, there has also been a disbelief on the part of the population with the more traditional means of communication. It is worth noting that Fake News uses the credibility built by journalism to spread disinformation. Ticianne explains that fake news is constructed within a parameter studied in information schools. It is common, for example, to construct your text in third person to give an air of impersonality to the information.
In addition to checking sources, the coordinator always recommends researching information in major communication vehicles and reliable news portals. Usually a Fake News is composed of a flashy title and the beginning of the text, which should have the main information, is totally disconnected. It is also difficult to find references to sources, that is, there is no contribution of any character or expert talking about a certain topic in the article. The media and agencies involved provide a channel of transparency for checking information, helping citizens.
“Media education of the population is important, because traditional media is still the best way to obtain information, because it is the best means to check the facts and present the news considering its conflicting possibilities”, he explains.
Media education is very important and worked on in Unyleya’s journalism courses. Critical thinking about the news, knowledge of newsworthiness criteria and technical production of the text help the student to detect and combat misinformation.
“Society as a whole needs to understand that it should look for specialized channels to get information and not go around believing everything they read out there”, concludes Ticianne.
To learn more about the Unyleya journalism course, visit unyleya.edu.br.
About Unyleya
Founded in 2006, Unyleya is part of a Portuguese Holding and is one of the first 100% EAD institutions in Brazil. With 16 years of history based on innovation in educational technology and excellence in distance learning, Unyleya has already impacted the careers of more than 300,000 people. The Institution currently offers 27 undergraduate courses and more than 1,800 graduate courses.
With a teaching methodology focused on the student’s learning needs and on the main trends in the job market, Unyleya wants to revolutionize Education in Brazil.
For more information, visit https://unyleya.edu.br/ .
Adriana Guedes
