PRESENTATION OUTLINE
Why is there fake news on the internet?
In a New York Times article about fake news Michael Lynch, a professor of philosophy at the University of Connecticut, is quoted as saying “There are an alarming number of people who tend to be credulous and tend to form beliefs on the latest thing they have read but that is not the wider problem. The wider problem is fake news has the effect of getting people not to believe real things.”
Professor Lynch described the thinking of these people as “there is no way for me to know what is objectively true, so we’ll stick to our guns and our own evidence. We’ll ignore the facts because nobody knows what’s really true anyway”.
This means there is fake news on the internet because people want to believe it instead of real news.
An article in the online site Politifact states "creators of fake news found that they could capture so much interest that they could make money off fake news through automated advertising that rewards high traffic to their sites. A man running a string of fake news sites from the Los Angeles suburbs told NPR he made between $10,000 and $30,000 a month."
This means there is fake news on the internet because some people use it as a way to make money.
What have I learned?
I have learned there is fake news on the internet because some people want to believe it instead of real news and other people use it as a way to make money.
