BEWARE fake news

FAKE news is news written and published with the intent to mislead or misrepresent. Headlines that are sensationalist, exaggerated, or patently false are used to attract attention. The news items are quickly picked up by fake news purveyors who are willing to publish untrue or fake information in order to drive web traffic to their sites. Their goal is to mislead readers to believe the stories, influence their thinking and to make money through advertising. Social media sites are a primary tool for spreading fake news. Fake headlines such as “Pope Francis shocks world, endorses Donald Trump for President”, “ISIS leader calls for American Muslim voters to support Hillary Clinton”, “FBI agent suspected in Hillary email leaks found dead in apartment murder-suicide” all went viral on Facebook in the run-up to the 2016 US election. Many of the fake news items received over 500,000 viewer engagements and outperformed many real news items online. The growing concern about fake news has resulted in a widespread response to combat its spread with many, including Facebook and Google, promising to crack down on misinformation online.