According to the Doomsday Clock, humanity is 100 seconds away from self-imploding apocalypse. Think about the apocalypse as humans literally destroy not just ourselves but everything on the planet as well. This is according to a large number of scientists who joined together to predict the end of days by how humanity has handled every crisis so far. The organization began the clock around the year 1947 when the nuclear arms race of the US and USSR escalated to the point of world war.
Social Media is Becoming a Problem
The spread of misinformation by people with power is affecting the ability of people to respond to current threats. Apart from that, there are people have the ability to influence masses that the news reported by mass media is all a faux. This, in turn, makes the masses less likely or not at all be able to discern truth from lies. Luckily Facebook, one of the giants in that industry are making ways to remove and ban deepfakes on their platform.
As misinformation is a common tactic for people who want to sow discord, it may be harder to pinpoint news as misinformation. This is due to the fact that users who do this don't dive into specifics itself but the broader picture for people to think about the negative effects that the news brings them and so it spreads. Misinformation spreads quicker than accurate news because anyone can do it due to social media platforms and it tends to go viral.
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The Algorithm in Social Media is Making People Biased to Beliefs and Grievances
Inflammatory posts, tweets or statuses are more likely to generate more reactions from people because it channels our ego and beliefs to the extent that people tend to engage more in these kinds of conversations. After which this is where the algorithm tends to kick in where the more engagement occurs, the more this is shown to new users on their social media feeds. This is apparently true to all social media platforms as of current. In turn, they make humans into a channel to spread more misinformation to the people who have no clue of the truth of it.
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Steps to Prevent the Spread of Misinformation
Like most things people create, social media can be a solution to dissuade misinformation. By means of an example, platforms can promote law enforcement agencies and federal bureau links to provide accurate information and not just hearsay to the public. Our humanity can also be a factor for change since humans tend to look at the grimmer news with much more fascination than real ones because it tends to feed the black wolf living inside of us. Promote awareness, do fact checks before posting or reacting because the more noise you create, the worse it will get, especially when it comes to things that are incorrect.
People might well be right to be alarmed by the Doomsday clock if only humans become crippled to the point that they can no longer differentiate between fact from fiction in terms of the world everybody lives in. It is up to each and everyone to prevent this from happening or making it happen by the decisions that define everyday lives. Be well informed and prevent grievances and biases cloud your judgment to do what must be done to save us from "midnight."
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