Week 2 Readings - Zakariya Syed

 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8618405/

The misinformation of workout videos specifically on social media is something I have been a target of ever sense I started working out at the gym. To get my gym journey started I followed these trendy social media fitness influencers because in my eyes they were the experts on working out. From then I was bombarded with so many video says "Here is how you build abs in 1 month" or "these are the only arm exercises to do when building strength". In "Lexicon of Lies: Terms for Problematic Information" Caroline Jack writes how "digital platforms systematize incentives that can drive the spread of problematic information" (3). She also states how "intentions behind any given piece of media content are rarely clear" so in actuality some of these influencers do not actual care about giving viable information but to just grow their social media to grow their audience in order to get more money from sponsorships. In order to shield myself from this misinformation I started researching on repetable sources such as Men's Health or goverment studies in order to see what workout are best for me and will help me stay health. 

https://keia.org/the-peninsula/fake-news-from-pyongyang-how-north-korea-is-using-the-internet/

Another example of misinformation is how North Korea systematically uses social media and other sources to make their country look like a trusted society while in reality it is a brute dictatorship where there is often food shortages. In the article Robert King explains how North Korea uses videos on social media to show how positive the food culture is specifically in the capitol city of Pyongyang. He writes how in a video "The restaurant is as nice as some of the best restaurants in Seoul.  In the center of the main part of the restaurant is a large fish pond, where diners choose the fresh fish they want as it swims around." King states how the reality of North Korea in actuality is that the common man can not even dream of accessing a restaurant much less afford it. This relates to the reading titled "Critical disinformation studies: History, power, and politics" where Rachel Kuo and Alice Marwick state that "Disinformation is fundamentally related to power.". In the context of the United States misinformation is used to propagate the importance of whiteness in society to control it and in North Korea the use of propagating food security is used to show the positive atmosphere society has there.