Meilin Rife
Recently, Liam Rensley, a CEO on the Forbes 400, has officially announced his decision to acquire TikTok. He intends to rename it Y, and soon, American citizens will be able to doom-scroll with no worries of a ban in the future.
Of course, Liam Rensley doesn’t exist, and TikTok isn’t going to be renamed. This is easy to fact-check, but many still fall for similar deceiving stories that seem plausible at first glance.
Part of this is due to the rise of social media in the past few decades. According to the Pew Research Center, over half of U.S. adults use social media sites like Facebook, YouTube, Instagram and TikTok as news sources.
“[As social media] becomes more mature, there are people out there who are very aware that they can get their messages out,” said history teacher Jonathan Felder. “Especially with the current president being elected, he’s pointing out fake news all the time and using social media in an unusual way … There’s a lot of people out there who aren’t so concerned about what impact they’re actually having on people. They’ll just say whatever they want to say to accomplish something.”
Specifically for TikTok, at least half of Gen Z see news daily on the platform, and around 15% regularly get news from there. This makes TikTok incredibly influential among teenagers and young adults.
“[The videos on TikTok are] really short, so they can’t put every detail in there,” said sophomore Lisa Yau. “That could make people misunderstand what [the post is] trying to say. Everyone’s used to short videos and getting information really fast, so no one wants to actually go search about the news.”
This issue is further complicated by the way some news accounts present sensationalized content to generate more publicity and likes.
“If you’re trying to get your videos to have a lot of likes, you have to make your language very [inflammatory],” Yau said. “I can easily believe them because they make it sound so real, and their language is so aggressive. [Sometimes,] people start arguing in the comment section, and if I say, ‘Shouldn’t we see if it’s actually true?’ I get attacked.”
The effects of misinformation are widespread, from politics to medicine to worldwide events. For example, after the 2020 election, Donald Trump claimed that the election was a fraud, leading to the January 6th Riot.
“The evidence, especially from multiple states recounting their ballots and even the vice president certifying the election, proved that the 2020 election was not rigged,” said sophomore Laura Wang. “I believe that Trump, due to political reasons, … used his media attention to tell his supporters to ‘march to the capital,’ and they followed his words to do exactly that. His words caused extreme violence in the capital … The power that biased information has over people is truly insane.”
During the COVID-19 pandemic, misinformation fueled anti-Asian sentiment. Global crises create a lot of chaos and uncertainty, making them prime opportunities for false narratives to spread online.
“Everyone first thought it was because of monkeys, then bats and then they [blamed the] Wuhan people,” Yau said. “No one really knows why it was caused and everyone just started attacking Wuhan. As a Chinese person, I was scared when there was Asian hate here in America.”
This fear and scapegoating was amplified by many public figures who fueled the misinformation, as well as some general distrust surrounding the science of the pandemic.
“Trump said COVID – 19 was to be completely blamed on the Chinese,” Wang said. “ He even called it Kung Flu. When there is COVID – 19 or any other pandemic, we need to be united and work together to protect the weakest members of our society, not start complaining that vaccines are poisonous when people have worked so hard to create them to protect all of us.”
Misinformation fuels societal division, reinforcing pre-existing beliefs due to confirmation bias and eroding trust. In fact, previous exposure to misinformation increases the chances of people believing it according to the American Psychology Association, creating a harmful cycle.
“[Misinformation] can potentially break friendships apart if two people believe vastly different things,” Wang said. “They start arguing, and then they just split apart if they refuse to compromise. In America right now, the Republicans and Democrats believe vastly different things. The whole country is split apart between two different views on these issues, [creating] a lot of partisanship.”
Misinformation, especially on social media, plays a key role in shaping public perception and can often deepen societal divisions. It fuels misunderstandings across crucial issues in everyone’s daily lives, from politics to health, which notes the importance of finding trustful sources for information.
