 Fake news it's our new favorite buzzword a politician you like got criticized fake news Outlets are printing statistical information that doesn't uphold your narrative fake news Anyone publishes anything you don't like what is fake news? There's a lot of buzz around this concept lately But it isn't a new one not long ago words like media bias or agenda-driven Programming would replace fake news and almost every one of those previously uttered sentences and before that words like heresy blasphemy Balderdash and poppycock were equivalents They're just quick phrases constructed to delegitimize another person's perspective without examining it Fake news we may lose the Vietnam War fake news Mr. Royal Highness the colony is want to revolt fake news fake news Fake-funded media so if people have been trying to discredit information they disagree with since the dawn of time Why is the concept of fake news so much more pressing at the present moment? It's been said that we now live in the post-truth era and that leads me to ask when was the era of truth Did I miss it? At what point did we devolve from a population of highly-tuned skeptics and into uncritical consumers of faulty information? Oh my did you fact-check your newsfeed today? Yes, of course. I fact-checked my newsfeed every day as per usual not a single error from a face feed Yes, indeed and Jessica's organic blog wordpress.com isn't packable isn't it always? Such thinking is fantastical people have always spread misinformation to promote their own views before the 1980s There were basically only four TV networks where all of your news came from and since they were all mostly on the same page We got a lot of the same information Even if these networks meant well when they got something wrong that meant everybody got it wrong and this was a big problem But then with the advent and popularity of the internet these networks no longer held a monopoly over the public's access to information And you could get information from anyone with any perspective There are obvious downsides to this folks on the internet have fooled other people into doing all sorts of stupid things like microwaving their cell phones and forwarding this email to everyone on their contact list lest they receive seven years bad luck and not Be kissed by their crush this Friday television media on the other hand convinced the public that there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq when there weren't that the wiki leaks were unreliable and that full house was funny I'll let you decide which bit of misinformation was worse for society when the internet allowed organizations like wiki leaks to provide us with Pertinent information that was being withheld from the public most of the big players in media did nothing but try to discredit them Even though they turned out to be right It's obvious that this kind of information would never have made it to the public if we had exclusively trusted old media So it's a good thing. We didn't is fake news new no way But the amount of access we have to it is on the flip side We now have greater access to accurate information We may not have had before so how does one operate within this landscape when you hear an extraordinary claim Demand extraordinary evidence check the sources on every article. Keep your guard up and don't be quick to outrage Be the most skeptical of that which you wish to be true most importantly Don't just write off a story because it's from a website you distrust fact check them and examine their arguments Don't just write them off by calling them fake news and who knows you might be surprised even a broken clock is right twice a day fake news Hey folks if you enjoyed this video, please like and subscribe and also check us out at FEE org. Thanks so much