On social platforms, the process of influencing public opinion through the spread of fake news and rumors usually includes the following steps: 1. **Identify the target topic**: People who intend to spread rumors usually choose a controversial or widely concerned topic, such as political elections, public health issues or social events. This makes it easier to attract people's attention. 2. **Create content**: False information is often written in an eye-catching or inflammatory way, and may contain sensational headlines, fabricated data or fake pictures. The content may emotionally trigger anger, fear or surprise, with the purpose of prompting users to share. 3. **Choose the right platform**: Different social platforms have different user bases and characteristics. Rumor spreaders may choose platforms where information spreads faster, such as Twitter, Facebook or WeChat, in order to quickly increase the visibility of information. 4. **Exploit algorithms**: The algorithms of social platforms tend to display content that users are interested in or controversial. Therefore, false information carefully designed to stimulate a lot of discussion and interaction may be pushed to a wider audience by algorithms. 5. **Use of online “trolls” or robots**: Through the continuous forwarding or commenting of a large number of accounts (possibly automated robots), the exposure and credibility of false information can be further increased. This strategy can create a “viral” spread of information in a short period of time. 6. **Seeking authoritative endorsement and cooperation**: Sometimes, the disseminator will try to get the information recognized or discussed by certain “authorities” or “experts”, which can increase the credibility of the information and make it easier for the public to believe it. 7. **Mass participation and diffusion**: By taking advantage of people’s herd mentality or confirmation bias (only believing information that conforms to their own views), rumors can be quickly shared by ordinary users and thus spread exponentially. 8. **Creating ambiguity and confusion**: When the audience begins to discuss or question the authenticity of this information, mixing some facts and introducing different versions of rumors may cause information confusion, making it more difficult for the public to distinguish the truth from the false. The impact of this strategy can be multifaceted: in the short term, it can greatly deflect the focus and direction of public topics, causing widespread social panic or anger; in the long term, it may erode public trust and social cohesion, and even lead to further division of society. Strategies to guard against such influences include improving the public’s media literacy, strengthening content review mechanisms on social platforms, and cultivating big data and artificial intelligence technologies to identify and control the spread of false information.