Cruz 1
Lesley Cruz
Professory Hays
RHET 102
24 January 17
A Couple Things About Fake News
In, “The Real Story About Fake News is Partisanship” by Amanda Taub, the thesis is that partisan bias is a big influence on many different topics. The other article doesn’t necessarily state the thesis because at no point does he say, “The thesis of the article is that partisan bias is a big influence on many different topics.” Amanda Taub, does however imply that that’s the thesis because it’s the main topic and it all revolves around the negativity fake news brings. One claim is that the author makes in support of her thesis is by saying, “partisan bias now operates more like racism than mere political disagreement, academic research on the subject shows.” One comment I feel strongly about is when she says that, “partisan tribalism makes people more inclined to seek out and believe stories that justify their pre-existing partisan biases, whether or not they are true.” I strongly agree with this because on social media you’ll find a lot of fake news and there’s people who right away believe what was said. There’s times where a fake website posts that some celebrity was found dead or hurt and it ends up not being true, which isn’t a good thing because then when somebody really passes away nobody believes it. Yes, this reminded me of all the times that I came across fake news on Clinton and Trump and it ended up not being true but nobody really knows. I personally feel like I wouldn’t be able to stop the fake news or the influences partisan bias has, but I do feel like I can warn people about it.
In, “Fake News Website in the United from Wikipedia,” the thesis is that fake news usually publish propaganda and false information that catches attention quite fast. The author somewhat states this by bringing it up frequently but does not say “The thesis is…” The author gives an example that has to do with the election of Trump and Clinton. The person who wrote this said, “Subsequent to the 2016 election, the issue of fake news turned into a political weapon between supporters of Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump...” I feel strongly about the fact that Hillary Clinton said, “it posed a danger to citizens of the U.S. and to the country’s political process.” I’m all for this because it’s true. People don’t realize that the things they write or say on the internet are on the internet forever now.
In, “Snopes.com,” it’s all about rumors that have been brought up or made. This website has tons of fake stories and some articles that have some truth to them. These articles aren’t written by the same person but instead many different writers actually post on here. I feel strongly about this website because I never knew it existed. I looked through this website and found lots of stories that were all over Facebook or that people have relied on. I think it’s crazy and it messes with people’s minds when there’s a website with news articles who we can believe in but wouldn’t know if we should or shouldn’t.