Examples of Fake News
"President Barack Obama bans the pledge of allegiance in schools!"
In August 2016 an article surfaced to the face of social media stating that the President of the USA at the time Barack Obama was going to ban the pledge of allegiance in schools. The article states that the president had signed the executive order 13,738,which revokes the federal government’s official recognition of the Pledge of allegiances and also bans any public school or any federal official from reciting the pledge of allegiance. Not only did the article come up with the allegations that Obama was banning the pledge of allegiance but it also came up with utterly made up sentences for those who did recite the pledge of allegiance.
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One rumor of sentencing was a fine of up to 10,000 US dollars or a maximum sentence of one year in prison. The apparent reasons Obama gave for hating the pledge of allegiance and signing the executive order were because it was “divisive” and was “contrary to America’s deepest values”. During an alleged press conference Obama stated that the pledge excludes many vital Americans who are vital to making the US the country it is. Obama said “Asking someone to pledge their allegiance to our country excludes Jehovah’s Witnesses, Amish, Muslims, and many others whose religious beliefs prohibit strong displays of nationalism. By calling this ‘one nation under God’, he proceeded to claim that by saying “liberty and justice for all” that Americans were ignoring the grievances of Hispanic, African American and Muslim people who feel they have neither liberty or justice.president Barack Obama summed up his press briefing by challenging congress to create a new pledge that more accurately reflects America’s values.According to Buzzfeed this story had the highest Facebook
engagement of any news story in 2016
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Plateau State
Fake news, although generally appealing to the majority of readers consists ultimately of inaccuracies as well damaging reflections on certain individuals, typically those in the public eye, depicting such individuals, organizations or cultures in a particular way.
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“Fake news is a type of yellow journalism or propaganda that consists of deliberate disinformation or hoaxes spread via traditional print and broadcast news media or online social media.”(“Fake news,” 2018)
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Plateau state in Nigeria is just one of many who have greatly suffered from what we call “Fake News”. The misinformation and incendiary images that have been published through Facebook have subsequently contributed to over a dozen killings within Plateau State. BBC Africa came into contact with Facebook resulting in the deleting of an English mans account who was spreading misinformation to thousands of Nigerians.
Like. Share. Kill.
(“Nigerian police say ‘fake news’ on Facebook is killing people,” n.d.)
In the BBC article 6 chapters are recorded in Nigeria consisting of Roadblock fires, hatred fires and false alarms.
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Chapter 1 (Fire at the Roadblock)
On June 23rd 2018, graphic images of young children murdered were spreading across the Facebook pages of young “Berom men” living in Jos, which was only a few hours from the town of these alleged massacring of innocent children. Evidently the young men of Jos enraged decided to take matters into their own hands, resulting in the horrific deaths of innocent “Fulani men”.
Such devastating attacks on these innocent men could have easily been prevented if the attackers who received the graphic fake news had examined the sourcing before coming to wild assumptions, such attacks were happening in proximity to Jos.
The origin of the images of such children had sourced from Congo, nearly a thousand miles away in 2012. Due to the Berom men assuming such attacks had undergone in Gashish many innocent people lost their lives, including Ali Alhaji Muhammed, who was roadblocked by inflamed tires and ultimately brutally murdered. An innocent, loving family man, who was wrongly killed as a result of “Fake News”.
This devastating example of the severity and consequences of Fake News is why it is so important to be knowledgeable of what is certified, regulated news and what is unregulated Fake News. Having an awareness of reliable sourcing of news can help prevent misinformation and can ultimately prevent unwanted consequences for those mentioned in such news.
References
Fake news. (2018). In Wikipedia. Retrieved from https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Fake_news&oldid=867877470
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Nigerian police say “fake news” on Facebook is killing people. (n.d.). Retrieved November 13, 2018, from https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/resources/idt-sh/nigeria_fake_news
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Sources :
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/obama-banned-pledge-allegiance-antoanet-iotova