Fake news has existed from the earliest days of journalism, long before Bat Boy became Hillary Clinton’s alien baby. In 1835, Richard A. Locke published a series of six fake articles about the discovery of life on the moon, now known as the Great Moon Hoax, in The Sun newspaper. Sales of The Sun went through the roof.
Writing false news stories and calling them real is generally protected by the first (and 14th) amendment (though libel can be prosecuted, and harassment). The 1931 Near v. Minnesota case, dealing with a small newspaper that attempted to report corruption in the Twin Cities, went all the way to the Supreme Court and set a precedent for recognizing freedom of the press by disallowing prior restraint on publication, and defined journalistic freedom for the decades to come.
(Read Minnesota Rag by Fred W. Friendly for the full story)
This is separate from satire. We all know The Onion, or the New Yorker’s Borowitz Report, as sources of satire. The number of humor-free sites attempting to convince an audience of authenticity without any real truth or foundation in them has been growing, as has their audience.
These sites were for a time easily identifiable. They were cheaply made and clearly unprofessional. But that is no longer the case, and the commodification of internet news and information can lead even the most astute of consumers astray.
The Big Hoax
Facebook is perhaps the biggest offender. 66% of Facebook users get news from the site, and falsehoods have spread there like the plague. As outlined in the Select All article Can Facebook Solve Its Macedonian Fake-News Problem? the ability to generate income through ads has turned the social media platform into an even larger hub for fake news sites. The only point is to drive people toward these sites and capitalize on the traffic.
“The business model is not particularly different from any mainstream publisher’s social-media strategy in an era where more people look at Facebook than all news outlets combined: Build a Facebook page, gather a large following, and try to draw that audience off of Facebook and onto your site, where you’re serving the ads off of which you draw revenue.”
These sites get paid for every innocent click. But the problem doesn’t end with techies looking to make a quick buck on John Q public. It’s not surprising, either. The general populace is still very gullible. More problematic still is what is known as the Backfire Effect, when a story, even after it is disproved or corrected, remains stuck in the human brain as truth; the correction can “backfire” and reinforce initial beliefs; if someone reads something that supports their beliefs, they won’t waver (and will often double down, becoming even more entrenched in their views) if that information turns out to be untrue.
In a study conducted by Brendan Nyhan and Jason Reifler of the University of Michigan and Georgia State University, people were given a fake article claiming that the U.S. had found weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. When shown a second, true article reporting that the U.S. had indeed found nothing, the people leaning liberal accepted the information, while those leaning conservative refused to.
“After reading that there were no WMDs, they reported being even more certain than before there actually were WMDs and their original beliefs were correct.”
Fake news has a much stronger sway on the opinions of the populace. These narrative scripts say that it’s okay to believe what you do; they tell you what you want to hear and confirm that you were right all along, even when (or especially when) they’re completely false. As fake news spreads further and reaches more people, the implications are that at some point it won’t make any difference; whether real or fake these articles will become news and people will react accordingly.
F is for Fake
Facebook is starting to address the issue. Fake news sites are no longer allowed on its advertising network, for example. Google has made the same move. But it is still up to the individual to know the difference. You can’t always count on a third party. By sharing fake news, users themselves become a fake news source. Facebook’s inability to control its role as a (fake) news site is one thing, but users inability to differentiate between what is legitimate news and what’s not is another.
Always check the source of an article. If you see something that sounds a little crazy, or too good (or bad) to be true, go to the source site and see what else they’ve published. If their content is nothing but sensational clickbait, chances are the entire site is fake. You can always keep an eye on fake news sites at Real or Satire or at Fake News Watch as well. If ever something looks suspect (or even if it’s something you just hope is or isn’t real), you can plug it in and check its authenticity.
If legitimate news sites are reporting a sensational story, check and see if they are all citing the same source. Even sites you can trust make mistakes. Sometimes a story based on false information gains traction. For example, when Huffington Post jumped on a story that a rich banker left a 1% tip and a note saying “Get a real job.” It was later reported that the story had been exaggerated, and the picture of the receipt, the damning piece of evidence, had been Photoshopped.
It’s important to be careful with pictures. As made clear with the example above, a picture is worth a thousand words, or none at all. Check photos through sites like TinEye (which can also be added to your browser) to ensure they aren’t misrepresenting a story, being misused, or simply fake.
The Human Internet
It can be hard to separate fact from fiction. It is of course easier to hit “like” and “share,” with a bit of vitriolic side commentary, and move on. It is easier not to care. Advertisers sure don’t. That’s your privilege. You can be duped into believing anything, if you want to be. You can make a quick buck for the clickbait sites running rampant on Facebook, if that’s what you want to do.
Because, contrary to popular belief, the internet is still run by people. Humans. You and me and everyone we know. Sure, there are algorithms that supplement the work that humans do, and AI will continue writing more and more content, but it’s still humans pulling the strings.
As published in Wired –
“[Humans] still play a role. They build the neural networks. They decide what data the neural nets train on. They still decide when to whitelist and blacklist. Neural nets work alongside so many other services.”
On a much smaller scale, Facebook posters and Twitter tweeters are in charge of what spreads, what starts trending and what gets shared across social media, email, and the water cooler at work. We are responsible. When nothing changes, the public only becomes more entrenched in their (possibly false) beliefs, and unable to think critically or keep an open mind, complicit in the spread of fake news, falsehoods, and misinformation across the globe.