Ah, fake news, conspiracy theories, and hoaxes. How many famous personalities and celebrities did it kill? How much discordant argument did it started? How much fear and panic did it induced? And how much longer are we going to endure it? 

Thanks to the advancement of social media and the internet. It is no doubt that every piece of information that we need is literally at our fingertips. A decade ago, the internet is our prime source of factual information before they call books outdated and less substantial. School reports are based on Wikipedia like it was the standard of school materials. If we want to look up something that is detailed and concise, it is our go-to library.

It wasn’t until I started my writing career when I learned how information on the internet is tweaked easily. And not one editor trusts Wiki or even some medical websites for the sake of factual supporting evidence. For the record, I have nothing against Wikipedia and such websites. It was my standing example of something I used to trust and eventually learned that I cannot.

Fake news is fabricated stories without valid sources. Often, they are made to deceive, or purportedly, to entertain. The misrepresentation is often a good ground to solicit argumentative opinion from the public. But fake news is more than just a popular chismis that saturated the mainstream credence and interest. The trend is a lot bigger than we think it is. And at some point, we may someday fall victim to the ploy.

Satirical websites, those that are meant to entertain, are the biggest transporter of misinformation. Imagine when the Onion website once circulated a post about Justin Bieber being a fifty-year-old pedophile hiding behind the mask of a teenage boy that is Bieber. The concept is to make people laugh, but in some way, fooled the naïve ones into believing it is true. Some adults who came across it almost believed it until someone pointed out what satire news means.

We may also come across clickbait articles sometimes. The well-structured headlines are so convincing it forces some people to believe and draw conclusion thus far. It pays to click the link, read on, only to discover that the content does not support the headline or caption at all. Well, it literally pays, as some form of web marketing is profiting from the traffic redirected by the link.

There is also some fake news quoting sayings or opinions impersonating a high-sounding important people title. When the British Royal Beatrice Elizabeth praised President Rodrigo Duterte’s COVID-19 response in 2020, many people were quick to fall into it. Only, it was not the Royal Princess but the Netflix star Alba Flores’ photo with the made-up quote. That is an example of an impostor content and there are countless of these memes circulating the web.

Manipulated and fabricated propaganda are also proliferating with the sole purpose of influencing beliefs and dissuading theories. But, for whatever purpose they exist, we cannot set aside the fact that it threatens and distorts the notion of truth.

But how gullible are we to believe? Is our skepticism enough to distinguish the fact from the made-up stuff?

People are becoming more cynical and eventually, will have a hard time seeing through it at all. Lies and deceit become harder to identify from fact over time. How do you recognize the bias? Check, double-check, re-check and cross-check sources. When in doubt about something, never share, never post. Do not let yourself be a bearer of fake news. It is a modern-day and new tech-generation adage: think before you click./WDJ