User:JasonGast/sandbox

While "fake news" or politically-motivated disinformation (PMD) is not a new occurrence, the sentiment and spread of distrust of news coverage has become more notable since the 2016 U.S. elections cycle. The hashtag, #FakeNews, gained major popularity in 2016 when Donald Trump claimed that the negative press coverage he received was due to the spread of false stories. Since the emergence of this hashtag, there has been an increase in policy-related bills and laws regarding the proliferation of inaccurate information globally, which further politicized the issue and raised concerns of impending censorship. The emergence of social media has allowed for "fake news" to spread much quicker than regular news and information, pushing technology companies to take a more active role in detecting and removing "fake news".

An example of #FakeNews comes from a website named WTOF 5 News. The headline reads: “Pope Francis shocks world, endorses Donald Trump for president” With the help from Facebook, this fake news article received over 960,000 engagements from the popular social media site, making it one of the post popular fake news articles of 2016.