Americans Say Fake News Bigger Problem Than Terrorism

[DonViejo]

Source: PoliticalWire


June 5, 2019 at 10:12 am EDT By Taegan Goddard

A new Pew Research poll finds Americans view made-up news and information as a bigger problem than other critical issues, including terrorism, immigration, climate change and racism.

An overwhelming majority of Americans (68%) believe made-up news and information has a big impact on their trust in government and more than half (54%) of Americans say it impacts their confidence in other Americans.

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Read more: https://politicalwire.com/2019/06/05/americans-say-fake-news-bigger-problem-than-terrorism/

[Gothmog]

1. Arggh

[Turin_C3PO]

2. Fake News IS a problem.

The right wing and Russian trolls are 99% to blame though, not MSM as Trump claims.

[KPN]

4. THIS

[Chin music]

7. Yes. Start w the man in the mirror...fox "news".

Been disingenuous reporting for 25 years. So sick of the word "fake'. Said way too often by the guy who predominantly is....HIM.

[lagomorph777]

12. Typical ambiguous question! Polls often miss the truth (deliberately?) this way.

What is fake news? Anything that annoys Trump? Or Russian trolls spewing lies into Facebook and Twit?

[TwilightZone]

3. It should undermine their trust in the source of the fake news.

But it often doesn't seem to.

"An overwhelming majority of Americans (68%) believe made-up news and information has a big impact on their trust in government"

I can see that, particularly when the government is the source of the fake news. When the governor of a state (Abbott) is at the forefront of pushing idiocy like Jade Helm, it's no wonder that confidence is low.

"more than half (54%) of Americans say it impacts their confidence in other Americans"

The stuff that otherwise-intelligent people will post and forward on social media can be a bit mind-boggling.

All that being said, it's not even in the same ballpark as issues like climate change or racism. It certainly feeds the narrative about them, however.

[KPN]

5. There's "fake news" and real fake news. Faux Noos is the biggest culprit when it comes to real fake

news. Real fake news is the reason the GOP, corporations and billionaires get away with their crap re: Global Warming (let's call it what it really is and drop the ambiguous euphemism perpetrated by the oil industry and their GOP lackeys) and racism. Without real fake news, progress on these two issues would be far ahead of where it currently is (which is "going backwards&quot .

Real fake news, along with Citizens' United, orchestrated voter suppression and overall GOP malfeasance ARE the ballpark.

[durablend]

6. The problem here...

Is what is being considered "fake news" to said polled Americans? The drivel Fox News spews or do they consider everything *other than* Fox News to be "fake news"?

[LiberalLovinLug]

9. That's why the polling numbers are high

You get Democrats and liberals voting their concerns from Fox News, Info Wars, Rush Limpballs, Putin FaceBook and Twitter infiltration.

And add to that wingnuts concern about CNN and MSNBC and basically any other news source that says a mean thing about their big orange baby.

[GeorgeGist]

8. Meanwhile ...

[jmowreader]

11. I see "U.S. Political System" on there

Is Donald F. Trump part of that, or does he have his own category?

[Blue_Tires]

10. The problem with that is terrorism is out of our hands

but *EVERY* American can learn how to filter news and think for themselves instead of only shopping around for specific outlets that will only further entrench their biases...

[truthisfreedom]

13. Faux News, for sure.