Social Media, Fake News, and Russia Meddling – Capstone Project

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Social Media, Fake News, and Russia Meddling – Capstone Project

Recently, it was discovered that Russia used social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter to cause division among Americans and influence the 2016 presidential election. This was carried out through the use of Russian created computer bots that would create fake news pages that would then seek out individuals who would be susceptible to the content. Due to the lack of fact-checking and quality insurance on many of the social media sites, fake news has become an epidemic. Combine that with the fact that two-thirds of US adults now get their news from social media, thus leading to highly problematic results. The amount of fake news that plagues Facebook is incredibly alarming, with 470 accounts linked to Russia. Furthermore, it was estimated by Facebook that over 126 million people were served content from these Russian linked pages. Twitter found similar results, finding 2,752 accounts associated with the Internet Research Agency, which is the phony agency that was creating the fake news. Overall these accounts posted 131,000 tweets in a period from September to October in 2016. The main goal of this Russian effort was to instill division in America. This was done by creating fake news stories that were about some controversial issue and then have it reach individuals that would with either agree or disagree with its content. This can be highly dangerous because if someone already has an extreme stance on an issue they could see content that would just reinforce their beliefs. For this reason, it’s incredibly important for there to be more transparency on social media, and also fact checking on news posts.

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