In today’s society we have an overwhelming amount of information thrown at us daily. In fact we are living in a time where we have so much access to information that we take it for granted that we can just Google a topic and find thousands of links referencing said keyword. Many individuals also use social media platforms to obtain information about the latest current affairs. This could be problematic because if the information is not backed up by a good source it could be deemed unreliable. Having said that, not many people confirm the information they find on social media platforms. They just read it or watch a video discussing the topic and spread the information they see like wildfire.
However, Andrew Hutchinson, a journalist for Social Media Today is reporting that Twitter has released new draft rules about how content can be posted onto their platform. Twitter wants users ‘to have context about the content you’re seeing and engaging with’. The goal with these draft rules is to have all reports of news verified by being linked to a news article or to a Twitter Moment. This will give users the opportunity to further investigate the issue they are reading on and avoid learning about fake news. This will prove to be beneficial for users, for example, during times of political campaigns as it will prove that there is no fake news or false promises being made to the public in order to guarantee votes. Or if a video surfaces online referencing religious propaganda or acts in the faith of one particular religion, these videos will be scanned and approved to be left online out of respect for the religion and out of respect for the individuals in the video.
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This is a project for Study Unit MCS3953, University of Malta.