News agencies are responsible for verifying the credibility of the news they publish because these can be modified in the rewriting process or for political purposes. For example, an entire article can consist of valid information written in a neutral form and one false affirmation of unknown origin is enough to ruin it.
What makes fake news so powerful is the speed at which it spreads.
Of course, false information has always been here, but the internet is making everything worse by each year. Fake news has a tremendous spreading speed and can cause severe political and economic results that are hard to predict. Nowadays is the most challenging time in history to track the source of a story and determine the degree of fakeness.
Why is it so difficult to fight against Fake News?
Informing the public can help the fight against fake news because the news published online is often unverifiable or lacks originality. So, what goes into creating fake news? It may be simpler than you think:
● You need an online news agency platform.
● The users spread misinformation.
● Their number grows exponentially.
Also, fake news publishing often generates profit for the platform owners by incorporating ads, so they are in no rush to end this revenue stream. Another problem is the misinterpretation of the source. Let’s say, for example, that the local government imposes new measures to slow the spread of the virus: mass media can interpret this differently to attract traffic, clickbait, and be unique.
Those who verify will advise you to see the source first. However, in reality, there is no guarantee that the reader will do this because the news flux is enormous, and there is no time or habit in doing so.
IXFI’s role in the fight against Fake News
You can manually verify, but there are also tools to combat fake news, such as automatically finding the source or an anti-plagiarism system. Sometimes, those who generate phony information can avoid such a system when the source is lost.
There are projects and studies about using different techniques to identify inaccurate information. However, in many cases, the fake news style is no different from trustworthy information.
This is where IXFI’s Medium articles step in because we have the same problem with bloggers and social media platforms. Our writers’ process of analyzing the texts and using models to avoid fake news is as close as possible since Blockchain Technology is unavailable in news agencies and platforms. Along with our disdain for fake news, this is as close as we can get to share accurate information worthy of your time.
How can Blockchain Technology help?
Firstly, because of how it works. Blockchain implies the secure storage of data and the use of cryptography, and the impossibility of modifying this information. Besides text and multimedia files, Smart Contracts can also store news sources.
The viability and longevity of trustworthy news are obtained through technological characteristics like the cryptographic hash, digital signatures, and shared consensus.
As a solution, The Blockchain proposes:
● Smart Contracts for writers
● Smart Contracts to update the identity
● Dismissal of the identity
● Evolving reputation
Secondly, The Blockchain also solves a problem where mass media actively changes the date of published news. We can find the source by registering the timestamp and using a Blockchain method to decentralized store it. This method is especially relevant in electoral campaigns when a lot of misinformation is at risk of spreading.
IXFI and other news agencies can increase transparency, and access to misinformation sources could be easier and faster. This process will help the user verify the pieces of information and provide evidence of data collecting in each step.
The writers will have to consider finding those who create and spread fake news because Blockchain Technology contains all the data from the second they arrive on social media.
These are some of the ways in which the fight against fake news can be won with the help of Blockchain Technology and the efforts we at IXFI are making towards ensuring a more trustworthy exchange of information in our communities.
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