The role of new media

[Admin]

Going viral used to be harmless. Chewbacca Mom got more than 162 million views on Facebook while laughing hysterically for four minutes and ended up on "The Ellen DeGeneres Show." The Mannequin Challenge was a goofy trend that got friends collaborating on elaborately staged videos. Tay Zonday sang his "Chocolate Rain" ballad on YouTube in 2007 and became an internet sensation.

But over the last few years, trolls learned how to turn trending moments into a tool for spreading misinformation. The same way that videos of cute cats spread online, trolls have figured out how to tap into what makes people want to share on social media and use it to popularize outrage and fake news. The fallout is more serious than a spot on a daytime talk show -- it's widely believed that the rapid spread of fake news and increasingly divisive environment online swayed the 2016 US presidential election. Now Facebook and Twitter face criticism that they've lost control of their platforms as algorithms promote fake news as "trending topics."

For Russia especially, viral content has become a powerful weapon. In September, Twitter discovered 201 Russian-linked accounts dedicated to spreading fake outrage, while Facebook found about 500 accounts doing the same. These accounts pretended to be gun rights advocates and Black Lives Matter activists, taking up both sides of debates, with the primary goal to make noise. All together, the fake accounts on Facebook had been seen more than 10 million times, and that was just for sponsored content.

How Russian trolls lie their way to top of Facebook, Twitter - CNET