When you share fake news, you are putting your own life as well as the lives of other people in danger. You may not realize it, but when you share something that appears to be true but isn't actually verified, you're putting other people at risk.
The reason why this is so dangerous is that it encourages people to believe and spread even more misinformation. It's like a snowball effect: when one person shares fake news, they encourage others to do the same, which leads to more people believing in the news and sharing it with their friends and family members, and that snowball keeps getting bigger and bigger.
One example of viral fake news that spread in my country a few years ago was the one that said the president died in a hospital in London and had been replaced by a clone, it sounds very crazy but a lot of people believed it, and even though I knew it sounds very absurd, a part of me still believed it. Till today, many people still believe that the president is dead and the person sitting in the government house is a clone.
Fake news can lead to emotional damage, depression, embarrassment, loss of money or properties, and even loss of lives. One popular case that happened a few years ago was about a young man named Izu that was accused of rape by some group of females on Twitter, bloggers instantly carried the news and it was published on different news blogs.
People started calling for Izu's arrest and he lost a lot of his business partners, his reputation was totally ruined. He tried to defend himself but nobody believed him and in the end, he eventually committed suicide. It was after the news that people found out he was innocent, he was falsely accused of rape but nobody bothered to verify the accusation, they quickly believed it and bloggers helped to spread it around the internet.
Back when the issue started, I and some other persons asked for evidence of the rape, it can be a verified medical report or anything else to support that claim and we also asked for the young man's side of the story. But I received insults and bashing from everyone, some people said I am asking a stupid question and I quickly laid low after that, I can't fight a mob.
The truth eventually came out but it was already too late; a life has been lost. The people that helped to spread that news all went into hiding, some of them deleted their Twitter accounts and probably created new ones after they successfully pushed an innocent person into committing suicide.
A lot of stories like this are all over the internet, especially on social media. One thing I have realized about fake news is that it gained momentum as social media became more popular. These days we have a lot of desperate bloggers who are hungry for exclusive news content, they want to be the first to report a news article and they end up cooking a fake story and sharing it on the internet.
I am very active on a popular forum in my country called nairaland, I usually come across a lot of fake news on that forum daily. From fake job vacancies to fake government loan programs, fake news can take different forms and scale. I usually make sure to verify any news I come across by checking authentic and genuine news outlets.
Take for example; the academic staff union of universities (ASUU) in my country is on strike and sometimes, my sister comes back from work and tell me about a new development concerning the strike but after doing a quick Google search and checking all relevant online newspapers, I find out it's false. Once I ask her where she got the news from, she will say; "someone on whatsapp"
The best way to avoid spreading fake news is by verifying everything that comes across your social media feeds before sharing them with other people on your feed. But even if you do that, there's still a chance that some of these things will end up being false stories anyway! So don't think for a second that just because you've verified something doesn't mean it's 100% true because even then, there's always a chance someone could share something slightly off-base or wrong. If you're not sure about something, please keep it to yourself and avoid spreading it and end up making things worse
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