Fake News: Irony Ensues

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Fake news is everywhere, or so we've been told. How prominent is fake news, and what effects does it have? "Fake news" quite a broad term that essentially describes any news publication that spreads lies or fallacies. This encompasses instances when a journalist just intends to make some ad revenue with a clickbaity headline, or spread an ideology with completely unfounded facts. Fake news has a significant presence via likes, shares, and reposts in some social media circles because of their outlandish content. More often than not, these social media users will assume the complete validity of the claim from the headline, without reading the content or fact checking. As is the way with social media, these users might share the article again, and thus the cycle continues. Fake news is harmful to a society and public opinion because it creates opinions that are based on fallacies, rather than opinions founded on facts. Fake news also takes attention away from and discredits real news and real issues.
Internet trolls, specifically those of 4chan fame, have a humorous relationship with journalists and fake news.
This post, enticing fellow 4chan users to convince leftist publications that the "ok" hand symbol was genuinely a supremacist symbol. Much to their delight, the targeted publications believed what they heard and reported on it without much digging. The irony in this is undeniable -- journalists were trolled into creating and circulating fake news after they were fooled by fake news themselves. Regardless of his political leaning, I doubt that any reasonable person would say this isn't funny. Unfortunately this happened quite a while back as you can see from the timestamp on the post, and you might have even heard about it. However, a similar attack on naive publications was launched quite recently, and as far as I can tell it was an outstanding success. 
I myself must say that i don't see much fake news, and when I do, I'm not very easily fooled. I would recommend following pages that are aware enough that they are not fooled by fake news either. I knew both of these schemes were a product of fake news because I understood them in the right context, and I didn't blindly believe what I saw because I read the caption and comments below, and I soon understood the source and purpose of these so called hate symbols. I would also recommend looking up anything that raises your eyebrow or gets your riled up. make sure to employ your detective skills to determine the validity of any outlandish claims you encounter, and call out others for spreading fake news as well.   

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