Report: misinformation in social networks replacing real news
The amount of misinformation disseminated via the Internet is growing so fast that the fake news are beginning to displace the real. This was stated by the Chairman of the Committee of the house of Commons of the British Parliament’s culture, media and sport, Damian Collins. According to him, people hardly distinguish fake news from real.
In the Committee’s report States that this problem poses a serious threat to democracy. It also calls for the adoption of more stringent measures of regulation of social networks.
Earlier, the British government announced the intention to introduce a digital identification of all the campaign ads in the media. This means that all the political texts published in the Internet must have a registered authors, who are responsible for them.
The report by British parliamentarians has been prepared in the Wake of the scandal firm Cambridge Analytica in the beginning of this year.
This London company engaged in the promotion of directed political advertising, has been accused of using the personal data of tens of millions of users of Facebook in order to influence the outcome of the US presidential election in 2016 and the results of the referendum on the “broksita”.
The Committee members reviewed the data on different countries of the world where there had been attempts to influence the outcome of elections with the help of social networks. They were given information about how the Russian special services tried to influence the mood of the voters by placing ads on Facebook.