docs: new document hoaxes-overview.typ

blog/hoaxes-overview.typ

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+#show link: underline
+#set text(
+  font: "ETBembo",
+  size: 10pt)
+#set page(
+  paper: "a4",
+  margin: 1cm,
+)
+#set par(
+  justify: true,
+  leading: 0.52em,
+)
+
+#align(center, text(20pt)[
+  *An overview on hoaxes*
+])
+
+= Introduction
+In recent times, hoaxes have become increasingly prevalent as the
+internet continues to expand and as more people use social media.
+Misinformation is on a rise - though this is information which isn’t
+really new, the current state of things is horrible, and things really
+shouldn’t be the way they are.
+
+I aim for this to be a brief blog post detailing the effect of hoaxes on
+society, focusing on why they’re so harmful.
+
+= What exactly is a hoax?
+Put simply, a hoax is made-up information, be it a story or something
+else. Hoaxes are created with the intent of spreading false information - for a immense variety of reasons, from jokes and causing embarrassment
+to provoking politic or social change #footnote[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hoax]. I won’t discuss
+the causes of hoaxes further in this blog post.
+
+= The effect of hoaxes
+Hoaxes can cause significant damage to their targets if formulated
+cleverly. For example:
+
+#quote(block: true, attribution: "from the Wikipedia 4chan page")[
+The stock price of Apple Inc.~fell significantly in October 2008 after a
+hoax story was submitted to CNN’s user-generated news site iReport.com
+claiming that company CEO Steve Jobs had suffered a major heart attack.
+The source of the story was traced back to 4chan.
+]
+
+With the incredible presence of social media in our lives, spreading
+harmful misinformation like that above can be as simple as making a few
+posts - they don’t even need to be very convincing! What makes matters
+worse is how gullible the general population is, even those educated in
+this sort of thing - this shows #emph[just] how much influence the
+internet and it’s contents have on us.
+
+I would like to clarify that I’m not suggesting that people should avoid
+using the internet to gather information - while its reliability is
+incredibly questionable, the accessibility and openness it provides far
+beats traditional methods of gathering information \(books and such). My
+suggestion is that people should be much more careful with how they
+interpret information on the internet, and perform their due diligence
+in their research into whatever they’re aiming to learn; #strong[people
+should make sure that what they’re reading is accurate before absorbing
+any information] \(here’s your tl;dr).
+
+That’s about it for this blog post, as it was meant to be a brief way of
+expressing my thoughts on the matter. Thanks for reading!