THE DIGITAL ERA HAS ACCELERATED THE PRODUCING AND THE SPREAD OF DISINFORMATION

Manipulation of information is a trend that has always been active. It is currently emerging as a major global problem due to:

• Easy and fast creation of online media

• Internet as a global network

The Internet as a global network is particularly important because it has additionally facilitated the spread of the social media trend.

The digital revolution and the broadband Internet have accelerated the development of social media over the past two decades, while changing the habits of the public. Social media have become key links in the social aspect of the community, ie they have become ubiquitous in human life. The sprouts were born with MySpace in 2003, followed by Facebook, Twitter, Instagram…

All of these networks have numerous followers, some active, some passive. Facebook is still unarguably the most popular social network with more than two billion users worldwide. Both Instagram and Twitter are among the three leading networks.

The social networks are used as a source of information. Americans are ahead of Europeans in that regard, according to a 2016 report by the Oxford University Reuters Institute. The report investigated the consumption of digital news in 26 countries, including the United States and the United Kingdom. The results of this report indicate that publishers worldwide are facing strong disruptions of the business models as a result of the social platforms.

Social networks have become so powerful that they have contributed to many journalistic organizations embracing their trend of functioning. The dramatic growth of the social networks has caused citizen journalism to change. There seemed to be some changing trends in certain societies believed to be the result of the Facebook or Twitter revolution. The thread of optimism was soon replaced by disappointment. The Snowden affair in 2013 showed that states did not relinquish, however, their strong control over the society.

The following years indicated that the development of the digital platforms contributed to the increased risk of manipulation of information through:

• Excessive exposure to information that contributes to a decrease in concentration and ability for careful analysis in information processing (Too much information is psychologically detrimental to decision-making processes)

• An increase in vectors that contribute to the spread of misinformation

• Accurate population segmentation that contributes to accurate targeting

• Clicks are fast and cheap

• Simple and fast way of creating professional looking web pages

• Easy spread of data across a horizontal line created by social media without going through editorial oversight

• The Internet is a global media with no boundaries, making it difficult to regulate it, which facilitates the rapid spread of information in the communities

• Technical progress further facilitates the production of images, video and audio content that may be false, ie edited

The digital age we live in has only facilitated the creation and spread of disinformation.

Without responsibility, the manipulation of information is very simple. Today it is very easy to create a medium. Just having a website is enough. So anyone can become a media worker without respecting the work principles and standards. This has contributed to the distrust in professional media, which in turn favors false media.

Manipulation of information makes us vulnerable, and the creators powerful. In this way, the public becomes a pray easy to conquer.

Violeta Ristoska Chadikovska