Propagation of fake news is an issue which plagues social media in almost every country, however, in countries like Pakistan and United States, where the political spectrum is clearly divided among fundamental issues, social media is proving to be an excellent platform to instigate a chain reaction of fake news on a very regular basis.
A very recent, and to be frank, humorous example of fake news spreading like wildfire on social media is about Shahid Khan, an overseas Pakistani billionaire who is the owner of Fulham F.C. Between Friday evening and Saturday morning, news about Shahid Khan donating 1 billion dollars (or in some cases, 10 million dollars) to the Prime Minister and Chief Justice Pakistan dam fund started circulating. We cannot ascertain the fact that who was the perpetrator behind spreading this news, but within minutes it spread everywhere. People started sharing it left and right, with an example of such tweet shown below:
The main point of concern is the number of interactions on that tweet, and that too coming from a seemingly unknown source. This set up a chain reaction of tweets and retweets, with the news even reaching the ears of people with a little more credibility.
Soon the news channels picked up the news and ran tickers about the donation, which, till this very day, have no credible source whatsoever. Faisal Javed Khan, the senator and central additional secretary information of Pakistan Tehreek e Insaaf, was quick to clear his name from any such statement when asked on Twitter. However, the damage seemingly had been done.
When the dust had settled after the jubilant celebration by excited Pakistani readers, then came the next step of this fake news cycle – disbelief and questioning by the opposing side.
Which was quickly followed by ridicule and a barrage by the twitter troll army, reducing the seriousness of fake news issue to a mere joke.
As users of social media, we all have some responsibility when it comes to sharing information. To make sure that we do not become a party in spreading fake news, we need to make sure that we ask ourselves some basic questions before sharing that information with our followers:
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