There’s been no shortage of blame passed around for the so-called “fake news” epidemic that has been front and center since the U.S. election.
Social media has been singled out as one key factor leading to the spread of misleading or false news. However, low barriers to entry for creating content, hyperpartisanism, confirmation bias, and the echo-chamber effect have also been identified as causes or symptoms in the proliferation of such stories.
It’s certainly a complex problem to unravel, and many proposed solutions are just as alarming as the symptoms they try to treat. The decentralization and fragmentation of information is the core of what makes the internet great, and this democratization helps to decouple power away from the established institutions that may or may not have our interests at heart.
How do we regulate news for its authority and legitimacy without stifling alternate viewpoints, differing narratives, and independent sources of information?
Source: http://www.visualcapitalist.com/fake-news-problem-one-chart/
