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Probably troubled by developments in the United States (US), the interest of Apple’s Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Tim Cook has been awoken to the heat of Fake News reality prevalent on the Internet as he has recently joined the voices of many campaigning against the phenomenon.
Fake News on the Internet has been blamed to have brought President Donald Trump to the most enviable position in the world – the position of President of the United States (POTUS). Although several studies have proved Fake News did not bring Trump to power, the phenomenon has continued to be a source of concern to world leaders, including German Chancellor, Angela Merkel.
The term, Fake News, was originally coined to describe online stories that are designed to deceive readers. Often times these stories are shared on Facebook and other social networking sites to generate profits for the creators. Other times the stories are essentially propaganda made up for political purposes. These kinds of stories received widespread attention before and most especially after the US election.
Fictional stories with titles like “Pope Francis shocks world, endorses Donald Trump for president” won millions of clicks.
It can be very difficult for web surfers to tell the difference between legitimate news sources and fakes.
President Trump’s executive order banning immigrants from entering the US especially cooked the patience of many tech firms’ employees to a level it triggered annoyance. Even when it has been overturned by a court ruling, the bad aroma still persists.
Given the indifference accorded the phenomenon of Fake News before the US presidential elections, reality now bodes on the tech industry, especially as Tim Cook now wants the industry to take action against Fake News stories that are polluting the Internet.
“There has to be a massive campaign. We have to think through every demographic,” said Cook in an interview with The Daily Telegraph newspaper.
Cook also said “all of us technology companies need to create some tools that help diminish the volume of Fake News”.
Recently, Facebook revamped its algorithms in the battle against Fake News, with Twitter doubling up efforts to combat the menace. Also recently, Google banned a number of online publishers over Fake News. Other major players on the Internet have pulled efforts to make sure that the phenomenon is trimmed down completely or to the barest minimum.
According to the Telegraph, Cook said made-up stories and hoaxes are “killing people’s minds,” adding that the “fake news” plague is “a big problem in a lot of the world”.
“Something has changed – as globalization has marched on, [political] debate is taking place in a completely new media environment. Opinions aren’t formed the way they were 25 years ago. Today we have fake sites, bots, trolls – things that regenerate themselves, reinforcing opinions with certain algorithms, and we have to learn to deal with them,” Angele Merkel said recently, aptly expressing her concern for Fake News in respect of the 2017 German elections.
“I believe we should not underestimate what is happening in the context of the Internet and with digitalization; this is part of our reality,” Merkel said.
“We have regulations that allow for our press freedom, including the requirement for due diligence from journalists. Today we have many that experience a media that is based on very different foundations and is much less regulated,” she added.
Everything Cook told the Telegraph boiled down to battling Fake News on the Internet headlong.
“Too many of us are just in the complain category right now and haven’t figured out what to do. We need the modern version of a public-service announcement campaign. It can be done quickly if there is a will,” Cook told the newspaper.
He, however, expressed optimism that the Fake News plague is a “short-term thing. I don’t believe that people want that at the end of the day.