The phrase “fake news” has been thrown around a lot recently on both sides of the political spectrum, but I find this phrase to not only be misleading, but potentially dangerous.

It is a term that means so little and does little to describe the phenomenon, that anybody can pick up and apply it to anything they don’t like. It is a term so malleable to someone’s needs that it essentially means only what you want it to.

The ability to use this term to describe both CNN and a random post on facebook is indicative of this.

One is an accredited, albeit sensational, news source, the other is something that was mindlessly shared because someone agreed with what it said.

“Fake news” stems from ill-informed people spreading ridiculous ideas, made by people completely making something up for political gain, which is the majority of what is called “fake news.”

We already have a word for this, but for some reason, it rarely comes up in the discussion: propaganda.

The Oxford Dictionary states that propaganda is “Information, especially of a biased or misleading nature, used to promote a political cause or point of view.” This is the root of the phenomenon of “fake news,” yet it is rarely called by its appropriate name.

It is not just something to be used to describe the colorful war posters of the past. Propaganda is alive and well in our society and is being used to cloud the truth. Every time someone shares “fake news”on social media they are actively participating in propaganda.

Both the left and right are guilty of this. We see something that is pleasing and affirming to our views, so we share it without doing any research, and we have let the chain of misinformation continue.

I implore my fellow ESU students to be better than this. Don’t engage the malicious tools of those who want nothing but to use you to their ends.

Think and research before you share, and call “fake news” by its true name: propaganda.