Follow The Money

Our last class discussion about media, funding, and credibility really made me think about how often we take information at face value without stopping to ask the bigger questions. One of the main takeaways for me was the phrase “follow the money.”  Behind almost every article, advertisement, or movement, there is funding, and usually, whoever is providing the funding has an agenda. This doesn’t automatically make the information false, but it does mean we need to be aware of potential bias or conflict of interest. For example, ads on websites might look harmless, but who is really paying for them? And when certain organizations, like Moms for Liberty, enter the conversation, it’s worth asking who supports them financially and what their long-term goals are.

This ties into the growing problem of deepfakes. With AI technology becoming more advanced, it’s harder than ever to tell what’s real and what’s fabricated. That’s where critical thinking is important, as guessing the deepfakes requires looking beyond the surface and questioning the source. Similarly, public figures like Miles Yu or authors like David Gillespie (Sweet Poison) gain influence through their work, but it’s fair to ask whether they are fully credible and how people perceive them. I even think about how easy it is now to just “ask ChatGPT” or another AI tool if someone is credible.

Finally, this connects to online privacy. Even something as simple as which browser we use matters. Using DuckDuckGo instead of Google, for example, is one way to avoid constant tracking and to protect our data from being used to push targeted content. Additionally, getting news from multiple sources is helpful as we are able to get different perspectives on the same story. In a world where information is everywhere and not always trustworthy, it seems more important than ever to question who is behind it, what they want, and how much we’re letting them influence us.