Pet lovers were very angry. Last May, a news article online said three states had passed laws limiting the number of pets that each household could have to only two. The news spread quickly, as many people shared the article on Facebook and other social media sites. But pet owners had nothing to worry about—the article was made-up.
Many fake (虚假的) news are harmless, but others might have played a role in real—world events. When it comes to online news, even adults can have a hard time telling fact from fiction. Education experts say kids should start learning how to tell the difference.
Of course, there are plenty of reputable websites you can visit to read the news. Well-known news organizations, such as The New York Times and the Associated Press, have their own sites.
But many other online "news" sources aren't always reliable. And many students have trouble finding out when articles aren't entirely true or are trying to persuade them to think in a certain way.
Why would someone purposely publish an article that isn't true? The most common reason is to make money. Websites are paid by the companies that post ads on them. Companies want to place their ads on sites that get a lot of visitors. So people create fake news with attention-catching headlines to try to get users to click on them.
Some of the biggest websites are trying to stop the flow of fake news. Last November, Facebook and Google banned fake news sites from advertising on their pages. Facebook is also working with fact-checking organizations to identify and flag fake articles. But experts say the best way to slow the spread of fake news is for people to be more skeptical (怀疑的) of what they read online.
