Fake News is news that is created either for political
gain or for commercial gain. In the former form, it is extremely dangerous as
it can lead to subversion of democracy. In the latter form, it might be less
dangerous but it represents the most unscrupulous of fraudulent means of making
a profit.
The U.K. Parliament has an ongoing Digital, Culture,
Media and Sport Committee inquiry into Fake News. In a written submission to
the Committee, Dr. Paul Dernal has presented instances of Fake News from 15th
century Romania where traders spread fake news about the ruler and of
religion-booksellers singing gossip about Cardinals in 17-th century France.
During World War II, Germany resorted to radio broadcasts that were fake news
about the shooting down of Allied planes and the sinking of Allied Ships in an
effort to manipulate public opinion towards capitulation.
Fake news has been a major tool in the wars of the 20th
century especially when used against enemies of a different ideology. It has
been used much effectively in demonizing the enemy. In the age of the internet,
there is a problem of explosive expansion of sites that are clamoring for the
attention of consumers. While the tabloid type of journalism always gets more
attention, the internet has given rise to sites that deal entirely in fake
news, most probably to drum up support for some kind of cause. At the same
time, ideological battles of the 60s and 70s seem to be making a comeback in
the 21st century as well with the Presidency of Donald Trump possibly
being at the center of the current upsurge.
WhatsApp has led to the creation of millions of groups each
serving as a source of localized news but mostly working to spread fake news in
the form of outlandish images or extreme attention-grabbing types of
information or pictures. In India, WhatsApp groups that operate in rural or
semi-urban areas have caused the deaths of innocent people by spreading news
that people in a vehicle were involved in child kidnapping. People travelling
to temples in the interior villages or those travelling to native places have
been beaten to death because the offering of chocolates to children on the
roadside had been misconstrued as a ploy to kidnap.
India has also witnesses religious polarization in the
recent past. This has been further fuelled by the fabrication of fake news not
only of recent events but also of actual historical events being presented in a
motivated manner.
It has been discovered that quite a lot of Fake News that
favored Donald Trump was viewed in the run up to the U.S. presidential
elections of 2016. Facebook has accepted that it was at fault in not being more
cautious on what was going on. The company has recently detected and banned
some sites that it said were running spurious streams of information.
Taming the medium
Orson Welles’ broadcast of a Martian invasion on radio in
1938 has later been explained by the author himself as an attempt to make
people question the credibility of the radio which was the WhatsApp of its age.
The Columbia Journalism review has compiled a list of victims of Fake News with
the Orson Welles incident forming the backdrop for its presentation. The list
includes parents who had lost their children to gun violence being presented as
lying on their loss and ‘Hillary Clinton
ballots’ having been found in a warehouse prior to the 2016 U.S. Presidential
election.
The BBC has a Guide on identifying Fake News where it
begins with two types of Fake News. The first is that which has been
deliberately created for a purpose while the second is news that news which
might be partially true with the untrue parts a result of the writers not
checking the facts they were presenting in their articles or broadcasts. The
first tip of BBC is to check whether the story has other sources on the
internet. The second is to identify the organization that is presenting the
news. The third is to check the name of the website to ascertain whether it is
normal or looking spurious. BBC has many other recommendations in addition to
these three crucial tasks for people before spreading or sharing a story.
However, at times, even an authentic-looking site might
be having an agenda that is deceptive in nature as Time Magazine reported in a
story about a breakaway faction of the American Academy of Pediatrics that was
peddling an agenda. Scientific American magazine has reported a study on
cognitive ability with the finding that people with lower cognitive ability
were not able to change their opinions on a person even when they had
discovered that their initial opinions were based on Fake News. The end result
therefore is that Fake News does its damage and this damage persists. This is a
serious threat to the progress of
civilization.
Serious attempts to fight Fake News are afoot around the
globe with Singapore adopting an “integrated approach” similar to its fight
against drugs. WhatsApp has brought in a feature wherein consumers can check
and identify the originator of a particular message and if unclear can check
the source of the story. Facebook has made acquisitions of AI firms focused on
detecting Fake News.
A workshop held at Yale University has recommended
‘critical thinking training’ in public schools as well as ‘government-sponsored
content literacy programs’ and algorithms being revamped to prevent their
misuse. Prospective Democratic candidate for U.S. President in 2020, Elizabeth
Warren has set up a ‘Fight Fake News’ page on her website where visitors can
report all the details of the Fake News item they had stumbled upon.
It will take consolidated and comprehensive action across
the board to fight this scourge. While laws need to be strengthened, people
must also aim and strive to not wantonly engage in the propagation of Fake News
just because it suits their ideology or thinking. Technology can and will find
a solution but the removal of fake news from society requires society itself to
evolve in a better way in addressing conflicting streams of thoughts and ideas.
