![Wayland Historical Society Executive Director Scarlett Hoey explains the history of the Cochituate Gatehouse.
"The exterior is still a nice monument to remember buildings [involved in] water history," Hoey said. "We all drink lots of water, and it's such an important resource that we kind of take for granted nowadays."](https://waylandstudentpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/IMG_2024-1200x800.jpg)
In the age of the internet, social media, fake news and misinformation, the need for trusted news sources is higher than ever. Today, the amount of information the average American is expected to keep up with is staggering.
While people have always needed to keep up with the world’s many issues, fake news and social media have added a new layer of nuance: fact-checking and distinguishing between what’s real and what’s fake.
National issues such as deportation raids, National Guard mobilizations and presidential temper tantrums are unfolding at a breakneck pace, keeping many Americans constantly tuned in. Add international issues like the war in Ukraine and the Israel-Palestinian conflict, and the need for trusted news sources becomes even clearer.
While most people acknowledge that trusted non-biased news sources are the best way to stay informed — whether that’s The Associated Press, the British Broadcasting Corp. (BBC) or another reputable outlet – more and more people are getting their news from social media. Many now prefer podcasts, short-form content and entertainment apps over established news outlets.
This is a product of factors including digital monetization and ease of access. Clicking on a short, to-the-point social media post is much easier than reading an entire news story. Not to mention the bombardment of pop-up ads and paywalls on many news sites.
Reading traditional news outlets has become too much of a hassle for many people, especially younger people, to seek out reliable information. As a result, many now get their news from social media, which is a hotbed for rumors, disinformation and misinformation.
Pushing readers away from vetted reporting and toward social media fuels misinformation. Many claim that rumors or myths cannot cause real damage, but history has shown otherwise.
One of the main ways misinformation spreads is through conspiracy theories. While some are laughably bad — it can be amusing to poke fun at flat-earthers and people who claim birds are robots or giants are real — they can cause real harm.
One such incident is the infamous Pizzagate conspiracy that began in 2016, when social media posts spread false claims about a Democratic pedophilia ring operating out of a Washington, D.C., pizza shop. This conspiracy led an armed man to enter the shop and fire shots, saying he was “investigating” the claims.
Another hoax that grew rapidly due to the internet is the idea that vaccines are harmful and can cause conditions such as autism autism or harm one’s health in general. While it’s difficult to measure the global harm of vaccine misinformation, it helped fuel Samoa’s 2019 measles outbreak, which killed at least 83 people, most of them children.
After a freak medical accident resulted in the deaths of two young children, parents in Samoa began to distrust the medical system and vaccines. Social media influencers and known conspiracy theorist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. further took advantage of this tragedy to fuel distrust of vaccines in Samoa, contributing to a vaccination rate of a mere 31% in the country. This happened just in time for the measles outbreak in 2019.
Because of the decline in trust for vaccines, around 80 people died, 48 of them children under the age of five. Misinformation doesn’t spread lies, it removes trust from science and established facts. Misinformation and the people that spread it killed dozens of newborns, infants, toddlers and preschoolers and forced their families to grieve.
This is why misinformation is dangerous. People need to be educated about what is real and what is conspiracy, and a lot of that responsibility falls on news organizations and other trusted outlets to make facts more accessible.
People will do what’s easiest, and right now social media influencers are capturing the public’s attention. In the past, picking up a newspaper was a more reliable sign that people were getting information from established outlets. Today, news organizations and other information providers need to do more to educate the public.
It isn’t enough for the information to be there for those who care to look for it. When falsehoods are pushed nonstop through social media, outlets need to do more to counteract them. The only way to fight misinformation is with real facts and education, which means the people providing accurate information need to step up.
It is difficult for modern day Americans to go past the tidal wave of misinformation on social media, and believing in lies is becoming increasingly normalized. As students and teenagers, almost all of us get at least some news from social media. While established outlets need to make information more accessible, the first steps have to come from us. That means being skeptical of what you see online, and it means staying informed about what is happening in the world.
Even reading the news once a week can be enough to start pushing back against disinformation. Education is a two-way street. If news organizations decide to step up and focus on teaching, we need to show them we are ready to learn.
