As we all start off this beautiful spring semester, we have plenty to keep in mind. Most of us are likely running around like mad trying to figure out where classes are or trying to find ways to stay motivated. Our small world at college is very chaotic, but the outside world is even more so at the moment; especially with the recent events that have occurred with the Iran/United States crisis. While this occurs, there are many news stories that may be entirely incorrect, such as the ones you may read on Twitter. As we surf the web for news stories, we need to realize that everything we’re reading may not be entirely correct. When people are uninformed about these false narratives spun by many news outlets, it leads to vast misinformation and the spread of incorrect rumors. 

One of the rumors floating around is that the draft will be put into place, which is unlikely due to a variety of reasons. The draft as we know it, being something the government doesn’t use unless absolutely necessary, hasn’t been used since 1973 during the Vietnam War. With this talk about the draft, our citizens have grown scared, and social media blows it out of proportion by making people believe there may actually be one.

With news media being such an enormous part of the United States, one would hope that only the correct information would be passed along to citizens. However, that is not always the case. Social media sites such as Facebook, Instagram and Twitter all spread massive lies about current events. Whether this is done jokingly or not, some actually believe these false stories. There are plenty of people who share these false stories with their friends and post them on their social media. Fake news can, however, be stopped if we all work together to fix the issue and stop sharing these stories with our “followers”. 

With this decade beginning in chaos, I hope that we can all become more informed about the world around us and read the articles that relay the truth instead of deception. That being said, we should know better than to fall for falsified information. There are a plethora of sources that are unreliable, such as Empire News and, believe it or not, the satirical publication The Onion. Even some news stations such as FOX and CNN have told false stories, and it’s a growing problem in the world we live in today. Recently, Donald Trump went after CNN, stating CNN relays fake news to its viewers. Additionally, there is a political rift between CNN and FOX because they are known to have opposing views, which screams bias. Sometimes it’s difficult to tell which news sources are reliable, but if there is more fact-checking and we become more informed, it won’t be as prevalent in the United States. Hopefully in the future, we, as a society, can start to stray away from these websites and not feed into the falsities portrayed by the media.