Since Trump was banned from nearly every social-media site, there’s more conversation about whether such platforms should have consequences for people — including people in the Hawkeye State — who spread false, misleading, or harmful information. Social media needs to have fact checkers, and people should be suspended when necessary.

Social media is an easy place to spread any information, including false, misleading, and harmful information. Sites have a responsibility to monitor and stop the spread of fake news.

Many sites, such as Twitter, already have fact checkers that check viral tweets. If they are false, there is a tag on them that can lead people to true information. Some people — such as Iowa House of Representatives member Sandy Salmon — view sites marking false information as unnecessary censorship.

Many times, I have assumed a factoid circling a social media platform to be true, but a notation from Twitter or Facebook let me know it was not. Because of this, I did not spread the information to anyone else, which may have harmed others.

Fake news — no, not CNN — is more serious than many may think because it has caused multiple cases of violence.

Conspiracy theories that the 2020 presidential election was fraudulent ran rampant on social media and are cited as one of the primary causes of the insurrection at the U.S. capitol.

It is important that we all try and stop the spread of such information in order to stop future acts of violence, but the main responsibility falls on those in charge of social media sites.

Social media sites also have the option of suspending or permanently banning people or organizations that often spread false information.

This is what Americans saw with Donald Trump. After Twitter banned Trump and other accounts prone to misinformation, the fake news spread on social media went down by 73 percent. Though this decision made a lot of people upset, it was ultimately for the better.

Social media sites should all add to their terms and conditions that false and harmful information cannot be spread on their platform. This way if someone is knowingly and repeatedly doing this, they can be removed from the platform.

Of course, everyone has a personal responsibility to try and weed out fake news. However, the truth is that most people cannot.

A Stanford study found that two-thirds of college students were unable to discern real information from fake news.

Apps like TikTok aren’t as rigorous with fact-checking information. This is especially concerning for college students, because the average TikTok user is between the ages of 16-24.

This means that if we are fed fake news, there is nothing present to tell us it is wrong. Since the majority of college students cannot decipher between real and fake news, this has harmful potential.

TikTok can add fact checkers that monitor videos gaining attention. This would not end fake news all together, but it would slow the spread.

In order to stop fake and harmful news from spreading rapidly, social media sites need to monitor the information being shared more closely. If not, social media will only become a more dangerous place.

Columns reflect the opinions of the authors and are not necessarily those of the Editorial Board, The Daily Iowan, or other organizations in which the author may be involved.