So I decided to make my final blog post cover yet another recent fake news story. Recently a story entitled "Clinton Foundation Cargo Ship Raided At Port Of Baltimore Reveals Sick Secret," was posted on a site called DailyUsaUpdate, a site already well know for trafficking in fake stories. This latest article claimed that a raid on a Clinton foundation owned cargo ship found at the Port of Baltimore found around 460 illegal refugees in shiping contains on board the ship. The odd part about this story is that if you do a little digging you’ll find that the no such ship appears on the cargo manifest for the Port of Baltimore. You most likely will also find that the Clinton Foundation does not own any cargo ships to begin with.
Luckily, it seems that this story is having trouble getting off the ground. From all the places I checked, no one seems to be buying into this story. Perhaps this is a sign that people are wising up to fake news or perhaps it was just to farfetched to believe this time but I found that nobody's even talking about this latest story. Though it might be a tad optimistic of me, I would like to see this as a sign that if this is not a sign of people wising up, to see it as a sign that some of the new means of combating fake news are working. Though I only saw this mentioned in one of the articles I read in researching this story, article titled Fake news: Clinton Foundation has no ships, didn’t smuggle refugees posted on politifact mentions how “The article was flagged by Facebook users, as part of the social media site’s efforts to cut down on fake posts being shared in news feeds.” Though it might be a tad early to say this, I am glad that it seems that some of the new ways social networks are implementing to fight fake news are working. Politifact, and Internet Rumors Bloggers. "Clinton Foundation Has No Ships, Didn't Smuggle Refugees." @politifact. N.p., 12 May 2017. Web. 13 May 2017.
11 Comments
5/14/2017 02:26:36 pm
I think you're right, and that people as a whole are beginning to slowly wise up to the stories that fake news outlets are broadcasting. Because of the rapid expansion and dissemination of the internet, proper fact-checking and understanding what makes a reputable website is not common knowledge, especially among older generations. However, with the recent focus of the media /on/ the topic of fake news, I think people are beginning to look with a bit more scrutiny at where they get their information.
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Eliasar Gandara
5/14/2017 04:30:41 pm
I agree that as time goes on, people are becoming less susceptible to believe everything the media has to say, however people believe what they want to believe. Although the story is not true, there are still conservative sources that continue to fool people into believing their "alternative facts".
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Jose Cortez
5/19/2017 10:00:22 pm
Though I agree that people are becoming less susceptible to believing some of these outrages stories, there are a couple of more subtle ones that many people do not bother to research.
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Tommy Ha
5/14/2017 05:25:23 pm
Hi Ian,
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Cristina Cachux
5/14/2017 09:12:23 pm
Intersting post about an insane article. I do not see how people could actually believe these fake news articles. Its obviously a ploy to create bad press but I am glad to hear that it is having a difficult time getting the traffic it needs to really go viral. I have yet to even hear about this article so that might be a good thing. I really am interested in the logic behind the writer.
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James Barquera
5/20/2017 04:29:20 pm
The problem is verifying these news articles. I think tech industries should find a way to stop this from happening but I do not see this happening anytime soon. I personally would not know how to approach this but people can easy be manipulated into something. I think the best solution would be to educate people on these matters.
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Stephen Negron
5/17/2017 11:27:25 am
There would still be some people with doubts that the story was entirely fake and would believe it may have been covered up to look that way. I guess there would be no convincing everyone entirely.
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Hugo Argueta
5/17/2017 10:01:28 pm
Hey Ian,
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Pearce Reinsch
5/19/2017 04:54:18 pm
It is good to hear that something simple like a flagging system can be used to battle such an important issue. My only worry is that internet trolls will use the system to flag real news and cause the whole thing to come crashing down. Hopefully this system was thought through. This highlights the amount of thought that needs to go into something as simple as a news feed.
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Jose Cortez
5/19/2017 10:04:55 pm
I had not thought of this, this is a very interesting point you bring up. Subreddits like The_Donald, which are known for brigading, may start using this flagging system to a abuse real news sites.
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Jose Cortez
5/19/2017 09:57:08 pm
I hope website's that put out this kind of fake news start being exposed and punished by search engines. I believe that Google has already commenced taking some steps to prevent giving advertisements to websites that frequently put out false information.
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AuthorIan Kindall a CD major emphasizing in Game Design Archives
May 2017
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