JOHANNESBURG - Fake news is a serious problem. Look no further than the 2016 Clinton presidential campaign.
While we have been assured that media are doing their utmost to label, shame and oust any bogus news, it seems they are nowhere near winning the battle, as ‘clickbait’ and ‘sponsored’ news keeps popping up in all sorts of news streams and social media channels.
The Internet is littered with fake news: no surprise given that anyone with a keyboard has a platform to share false information which, in many cases, is difficult to detect or too amazing to ignore.
The online trading arena seems to be the latest victim of fake news and rather obvious ‘clickbait’ stories of a “Camps Bay twenty-something” living the highlife on his yacht surrounded by a bevy of models, or “Cape Town man shocks Wall Street with secret system” or even how Trevor Noah made millions trading Binary Options have been doing the rounds.
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These stories can be found on the links of many and highly reputable news portals, luring the unsuspecting reader into believing these outrageous tales. Robyn Francis, Marketing Manager at Uprise Markets, a Johannesburg-based online CFD trading service provider, warns, “There’s a surge of fabricated online trading stories circulating the web. Trading platforms seem to have turned to sponsored content and stories of overnight success via online trading in Forex, CFDs and mostly Binary Options to lure unsuspecting clients.
Yes, there are success stories from online traders, those who have undergone proper training, have acquired the skills and take a long-term view, but expecting to become an overnight millionaire is certainly naïve”.
Robyn provides a few things to consider when reading a news story:
1. Don’t assume that everything you read is news. As simple as it sounds, the best tool we have is our own common sense. If it’s too good to be true, chances are it’s fake.
2. Understand clickbait: Clickbait is a term describing web content that is aimed at generating online advertising revenue, using sensational headlines at the expense of quality or accuracy by enticing the reader into clicking through to the story.
3. Check the source of the story: click through to the news article and check that the URL is a legitimate news portal. Only buy into a story if you recognise the source. If the URL has a strange ending – don’t count on it. Some of these sites use a URL that is quite believable, even resembling genuine, familiar news sites. Wikipedia has a list of fake news sites: check it out here
4. Sponsored stories should be labelled as ‘sponsored’ or ‘advertorial’ or ‘partner content’. These labels indicate that the content has been paid for and, therefore, is essentially an advertisement.
5. If you are looking for a CFD trading platform look for one that is South African, is regulated by the Financial Services Board (FSB) and has branches like Uprise Markets that you can visit to talk to someone face-to-face. Whilst we wait for the media landscape to remedy the problem, Facebook and Google have been obligated to withdraw fake news sites from their advertising algorithms.
We, the trawlers can also help by reporting fake news or news suspected as fake to Facebook or Google. If you are unsure about a post on Facebook, find the dropdown arrow in the top corner and click ‘report post’.
Google encourages web users to alert them of fake news using their feedback button at the bottom of a page. In addition, due to recent concerns over the US election results programmers are putting their heads together to develop tools to flag or delete fake news from news feeds. But for now, take heed. Make sure you find a legitimate online trading platform, complete an online trading course and pick up the phone. A real person in front of you or on the other end of the line is a whole lot more credible!