“Fake news continues to be a major creeping challenge into mainstream media” said
Kojo Oppong Nkrumah, the Information Minister of Ghana (as cited in Tardáguila, 2019).
Nowadays, it is very easy to share information with society because there are online social
media. However, this platform can create tension since anyone can post anything. Some of the
news are true, but some are false. There are types of fake news that has been created because the
websites or social media accounts wanted to sell the advertisement, to present entertainment, and
to discredit someone.
To gain more site visitors for increasing the advertising revenue and becoming famous,
the site creators have to post fake news. One of the types that used to add the advertised is
Pay-Per-Click. This model is running when online users click on their commercial link, the page
creators will automatically earn the money from the advertisers (Carr, 2018). This refers that to
gain the money from advertisers, they have to create a false headline or news to attract people to
click on the link. Another type is Clickbait which is a website that has a curiosity or sometimes
false titles to lead the viewer to click on their website (“What is Fake News”, n.d.). People might
get persuaded by those fake news title which motivates further reading. The website will gain the
pageview and become famous. So, the way to become famous or gaining the money, the page
writer has to increase their viewer by writing fake news.
Furthermore, there also have satirical newspapers that aim for parody purposes, though it
can mislead people in the wrong way. The purpose of the News Satire is to make sarcasm on the
occurring event or create the whole story (Woetzel, 2019). This kind of news will sweeten the
bitter news however, it can mislead people. According to Garrett, Bond, & Poulsen (2019), “
You have to understand what normal political rhetoric looks like, and you have to recognize
exaggeration. Otherwise, it’s pretty easy to mistake a satirical message for a literal one”.This
shows that several people are confused about whether the satire news is true or fake.
Lastly, junk news use to discredit someone for their benefits. In the Political issue, it
common to be seen the news that provides the bias point of view. There is an analysis shows that
the fake news for the US presidential election posted on Facebook has more viewers than the
news address by the big media companies such as the New York Times, and Washington
(Silverman, 2016). It indicates that fake news is still on trends because writers know that people
give attention to the negative side stories even if it may not be right. In the future, it will get
harder to find the truth in the News because advanced technology has created the Deepfakes. It is
the media that takes the existing people’s image to replace it with someone else. To suggest how
dangerous the Deepfakes is, Grace Shao (2019) comment “Camera apps have become
increasingly sophisticated. Users can elongate legs, remove pimples, add on animal ears and
now, some can even create false videos that look very real”. This innovation could be used to
defame people on the internet and it’s harder for them to be excused from it.
Many types of fake news have been created from websites or social media accounts for
the purpose to sell the advertisement, to present entertainment, and to discredit someone. This
essay illustrates that that fake news is everywhere and it becomes tough to spot it. It is the
reader's responsibility to perceive the sense of right or wrong from the news.
