Fake News Problem on Facebook

Mane Hovhannisyan is our distance learner in China. She is a 9th grader. Yesterday she sent me her essay on the topic "Fake News on Facebook". I can't help sharing it with our readers. 

One of the biggest inventions of the 20^th century was the Internet. And what is the Internet? Thanks to the Internet, we can keep in touch with our friends, even if they are in another country. Thanks to the Internet we can find the answer to any question. Thanks to the Internet, we can learn a lot, know what is happening in the world, and so on.

In a short time, the Internet has become an integral part of people’s lives.

A great many social platforms have been created on the Internet, such as Facebook, Instagram, Telegram, Youtube, WhatsApp, etc.

The role of the Internet in people’s life is increasing year by year. Today, some people work from home via the Internet. People can order whatever they want from home online. Many students study online. For example, while I’m in China, I study online at the High School of Mkhitar Sebastatsi EduComplex in Yerevan, Armenia.

Life has become much easier. Some even claim that the world cannot exist without the Internet. But I do not think so.

At the beginning I said that the Internet is one of the biggest invention of the 20th century, but at the same time it has become one of the biggest problems of the 21st century …

The Internet has changed the way people think. Very often, people spread fake news on the Internet, which can have a detrimental effect on others. The internet can often have a bad effect on our daily life, our mood, even our mental health …

Sometimes I see so much news (which almost always has bad content), I feel that all this is too much. My brain does not seem to understand what is right and what is wrong. I do not know who to believe and who not. Sometimes I get tired of reading the numbers of people who die of Covid 19 every day, or reading or thinking about unhealthy situation in the world. It’s sad, but every day there is news of either coronavirus, or war, natural disaster, or a political conflict. This situation is especially exacerbated by those who spread fake news. And it confuses us even more…

In the 21st century, “human freedom of speech” has emerged, which means that people today can express their opinions without fear of being caught. But in the 20th century everything was different. People’s speech was limited, people could not express their own opinion. The government was restricting everything. / I am talking about the USSR /. I’m against restricting human speech, but at the same time I’m against too much freedom when people are free to say what they want. People are given the opportunity to be free, but they misuse that freedom. If people were not so much free, there would not be so much fake news in the world, there would not be so many problems …

Who knows …