I would define fake news as false information that it presented in a way that looks like true journalism with the intent to deceive people. The definition that I agreed with most from the chapter was the one from Macmillan Dictionary that stated, "A story that is presented as being a genuine item of news but is in fact not true and is intended to deceive people." To me fake news exists for the reason to make the public believe in something that is not true.
Tech companies have responsibility when it comes to protecting the public from fake news. I believe that Twitter did the most appropriate reaction when it came to addressing the issue. Instead of deleting tweets directly they put warnings on the tweets that stated, "Some or all of the content shared in this Tweet is disputed and may be misleading." To me if Twitter deleted people's tweets people could argue that it went against their freedom of speech. By giving the warning it shows users that they should do more research on what the tweet is saying before sharing that false information.
Twitter officials Vijaya Gadde and Kayvon Beykpour stated to NPR, ""We expect this will further reduce the visibility of misleading information, and will encourage people to reconsider if they want to amplify these Tweets."
I believe that big tech companies do have to share the blame of allowing fake news on their sites. In this post-truth world they have to set new standards of what should be posted on their sites. They have to be okay with the fact that they may lose users but not allowing them to post fake information because that is causing harm to the public. Tech companies do have standards when it comes to obscene content but now those standards new to be reevaluated to fix these post-truth world issues.
Journalists today can combat this issue by addressing any mistakes that they made in their reporting immediately and building trust with their audience. If a journalist produces accurate content then the audience will have trust and trust the information the journalist is sharing. A journalist could also build trust by showing their audience how to spot fake news and how to evaluate their media.
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