Misinformation has been something many have been forced to learn how to deal with. The internet of the modern day is filled with incorrect or misleading information, either created from an uninformed source or deliberately created to mislead others. This misinformation can cause all kinds of confusion amongst people, but it can be especially dangerous for business owners and workers.
Business owners need accurate and reliable information in order to make business decisions, or else they risk losing everything they have built up. With how quickly information spreads on the internet and how fast owners or finance managers need to make decisions to take advantage of opportunities, it is easy for them to see an opportunity and find out later that it was completely false.
For example, this year, a prominent news outlet, CNBC, had a false statement as their headline that said that Trump was considering a 90-day pause on tariffs. The headline made it seem as if it were a confirmed thing, while there was actually no truth behind the statement. When the news was heard by those in the New York Stock Exchange, a cheer rang out and stock indexes reportedly surged. When the confusion was clarified, the stocks fell dramatically.
In the span of a mistake that took less than an hour, several stocks lost money due to misinformation. This event shows just how much faith is put into the news networks in the United States, trusting their word without them providing any proof of the matter.
Misinformation is the modern-day boogeyman, lurking within the flows of information and waiting for someone to be tricked by it. It is a prevalent issue that needs to be solved, either by greater regulation on spreading false information or by training workers how to verify information they see.
