Social media is great for memes, pics of parties you didn’t get invited to, and reminding you it’s someone’s birthday, but it turns out it’s not a great source for news. We’ll pause so you can get over your shock.
A new study has found that when it comes to Facebook and Twitter feeds, people can’t seem to filter out fake news. But the problem isn’t so much on us, as it is on whoever designed these platforms. The researchers blamed all of the content being located in one place with no sorting for the confusion. Proving that fake news is best served between cute puppy pics.
Another issue they found was that users aren’t paying attention to sources. Researcher George Pearson puts the blame on the site’s layout saying, “There is no visual distinction on Facebook between something from the New York Times and something from a random blog.”
- And because they have the same color scheme and fonts, people take in all the info as if it has the same credibility. Which is great news if you’reThe Onion, but not great news if you’re a fan of people knowing ACTUAL things.
Source:Study Finds