Stephen Downes

Knowledge, Learning, Community

I've seen this story in various forms over the last few days. It's a natural follow-up to the meme that fake news swayed the U.S. election. There's just one problem with this line of thinking. Young people aren't the ones actually falling for fake news. If they were, they would have been the ones voting for Trump (and for Brexit, etc. etc.). According to exit polls, older white men voted for Trump. These are people far more likely to have gained their views watching or reading traditional media rather than online media. The same traditional media that gave Trump an estimated $2 billion in free publicity. So, yeah - Facebook is far from perfect. But they are not the ones to blame for fake news. These people are.

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Stephen Downes Stephen Downes, Casselman, Canada
stephen@downes.ca

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Last Updated: Mar 29, 2024 02:50 a.m.

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