Combat Fake News
52 % of Americans report that they regularly encounter fake news online.
See all 4 projects in this cause
It's easy: download the viaGood app and support projects in this cause!
Disinformation, misinformation or mal-information?
“Fake news” is false or misleading information that looks like true news. Its goal is usually to damage the reputation of a person or an entity or to make money through advertising revenue.
Fake news is a work of fiction, yet any such news must be believable and therefore must be based, at least in part, on reliable and verifiable information.
Reporters with various forms of "fake news" from an 1894 illustration by Frederick Burr Opper. Source: Wikipedia
History Untrue news has a long history. For example, in the 13th century BC, Rameses II (Rameses the Great) spread the news of a huge victory of the Egyptians in the Battle of Kadesh (which, incidentally, ended with the signing of the first Peace Treaty). But the Chetites also describe this battle as their victory, even though it actually ended in a stalemate.
With the invention of book printing in the 15th century, the spread of false news was simplified. In the 17th century, for example, there were the infamous witch trials in Salem, where more than 200 people were eventually accused of witchcraft, due to fear and lies being spread.
The specific term "Fake News" comes from the end of the 19th century, where it was part of what was called Yellow Journalism (tabloid and unethical journalism), referring to sensational reports in newspapers. A journalistic struggle between Joseph Pulitzer (New York World) and William Randolph Hearst (New York Journal) was taking place at the time, and sensational news was a way of engaging readers. It is these two names that are associated with the US entry into the Spanish-American War (April 21 - August 13, 1898), when their newspapers incited anti-Spanish sentiment after the sinking of the USS Maine in the port of Havana.
During World War I, there were reports in the press about the German Corpse Factory or the Kadaververwertungsanstalt (literally “Carcass Utilization Factory”), also known as the “German Corpse-Rendering Works” or “Tallow Factory”. This was one of the most infamous propagandistic stories about 1st World War atrocities. The Kadaververwertungsanstalt was supposed to be a special facility in which the Germans processed the bodies of fallen soldiers to make nitroglycerin, candles, lubricants and even shoe polish. However, after the War, the Allies confirmed that the story had been invented for propaganda purposes in order to persuade the Chinese to join the War against Germany.
However, this fact provided rhetorical ammunition for Hitler during World War II. He accused the British of lying, as they had done during World War I, and of making up reports of the Holocaust and the murder of people in concentration camps. German scholar Joachim Neander notes that “There can be no doubt that the reported commercial use of the corpses of the murdered Jews undermined the credibility of the news coming from Poland and delayed action that might have rescued many Jewish lives.”
Some false reports were meant to amuse, but unexpectedly turned out badly. Like on Sunday, October 30, 1938, when Orson Welles broadcast a radio adaptation of War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells. Although it was clearly stated at the beginning of the broadcast that it was a dramatization of a popular book from 1898, many listeners still believed that the Earth was indeed facing a threat from outer space. This caused a panic, for which Orson Welles had to apologize the next day.
In 2003, there were reports that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction and posed a threat to the West. These reports then led to the Iraq War, during which thousands of lives were lost. When Bush spoke to the World Affairs Council in 2006, he said he “fully understood that the intelligence was wrong, and [he was] just as disappointed as everybody else” when US troops had failed to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.
Face swap on to original work of art using Neural Net, by Stephen Wolfram. Source: Wikimedia
Present Times Today, new information is flooding in faster than ever before. News and stories are very often published without verification. Thanks to the online environment and the power of social networks, news spreads much faster and has a greater reach.
A lot of fake news is spread by news sites just to increase profits. This may not always be news with a deeper strategy of harming someone, but it is used to entice readers to read such an article. Clickbait is simply intended to entice readers with an interesting and misleading headline.
Deepfakes, on the other hand, have a much greater impact as visual content. These are artificially created AI-generated media in which a person in an existing image or video is replaced with someone else’s image. This content thus has a particularly high potential for deception.
Social media. Source: Pixabay
How is Fake News Spread? Bots on social networks assist in the process of spreading false messages. They are found on social networks e.g. Facebook and Twitter. They have huge potential for distribution, because they use algorithms to decide what articles and information specific users like, without taking into account the authenticity of the article. These bots can create fake user profiles, which can then gain more followers and increase their group reputation. Almost 30 % of spam and content distributed on the Internet comes from these software robots.
Did you know that… according to a survey conducted in December 2020, the proportion of people aged 16 and over in the United States who were very confident in their ability to distinguish real news from false information was 39.3 %?
People While bots spread a lot of false news, people are guilty of sharing it. This is due to psychology, where people are more affected by the number of likes of a post, which increases the interest even more. This also shows that people are more likely to share false messages than genuine ones. Twitter users are up to 70 % more likely to tweet fake news than true stories.
The research by Vosoughi et al. further emphasized the role played by the emotions in sharing messages on social networks. They found that reading truthful news usually evoked feelings of joy, happiness, expectation and confidence. Reading false news evokes feelings of amazement, anxiety, shock and resentment. Researchers suggest that these emotions play an important role in deciding whether or not to share something on social networks.
Microtargeting Targeting of fake news is not always completely random. Thanks to cookies (tracking files) on your computer, information can be precisely targeted to your person according to previous preferences. In the case of interactions with fake news (if you like or comment), the targeting will be further refined.
Trolls These are real people who move on social networks and have only one goal – to provoke disputes and arguments, to undermine credibility, to swear and insult. They support false claims and, through their behavior, belittle the behavior and actions of normal users.
Did you know that… 52 % of Americans report that they regularly encounter fake news online?
Definition of false information
- Disinformation - information that is untrue and the person who disseminates it knows that it is untrue.
- Misinformation - information that is untrue, but the person who disseminates it believes it to be true.
- Malinformation - information that is based on facts, but is used to harm a person, organization or country.
In the US, only about 29% of adults trust the news media.
The biggest threat of fake news is that people believe it. The fabricated information can fit exactly into the perception of reality and the functioning of the individual’s world. But the problem is that it creates a false reality, not only for individuals but for thousands of people. People who raise children influence what is happening in society, and affect the lives of entire nations through political power. Regardless of a firm belief in our correct views, in the “online age”, fake news is becoming the number one threat.
Types of False Reports In 2015, 9 organizations (Facebook, Twitter, etc.) associated in the Google News Lab founded the project to fight mis- and disinformation online - First Draft News. They identified seven types of fake news:
- satire or parody - does not intend to harm, but has the potential to deceive;
- fake connections - when captions or images do not match the content;
- misleading content - misleading use of information to create a framework for a problem or individual;
- untrue context - true content is shared with false contextual information;
- fraudulent content - real sources are personified with fake or fictitious sources;
- manipulated content - the actual information or images are manipulated for deception;
- fabricated content - the new content is 100 % false, designed to deceive and harm.
Did you know that… according to the Statista server, in the US only about 29 % of people trust the news media?
Apart from content that is created merely for entertainment (this includes satire and parodies), other forms of deception are inherently more dangerous.
False Reports as a Means of Waging War Propaganda and the dissemination of misinformation have long been used as a means of military information. In this way, public opinion acts through information channels, in order to evoke or reinforce certain attitudes or actions of the masses controlled by the group that rules the masses through ideology.
Trust the News, but first Check it Out!
Combating fake news does not merely involve verifying the facts you hear or read. It concerns a critical viewpoint of the sources of information and the reason why the news is disseminated.
Talk to friends. Source: Unsplash
How to Talk to Friends about Fake News Immunity to fake news probably doesn’t exist, so it’s possible that your friends or family also may believe some form of fake news. But the solution is not always just to preach “your version” of the truth. If someone believes in false information, it is mainly because it fits into their complex perception of the world.
- If you want to chat with friends about this topic, do it personally face to face. In an online environment, the ability to listen is lost, because you never know the mood of the other person.
- Provide an alternative explanation of the problem. It’s easier than just saying to your friend that he/she is wrong. New information can modify thought processes and provide a critical view of misinformation.
- It is definitely a good idea to give advance warning that you have a different opinion and that you may refute some information.
- An open conversation can lead to discovering why your friend believes in a certain theory or news item. Because, in a similar way, this friend can find a way of obtaining information that is actually verified and true.
If there are any general rules for recognizing false news items, they include the following seven points:
Consider the Source See where the message comes from. Whether it’s from a reputable news server or an unverified source. You will then better understand its mission and purpose.
Read More than just the Headline The aim of a headline is to attract attention to the article itself and can take the form of a clickbait. Only after reading all the information will you understand the context of the message and the originally sensational finding will become just ordinary and believable information.
Check the Author In journalistic practice, it is common for an individual author to state his/her name, and if other persons are cited, to list their names. You then have the opportunity to search for these authors and to find out if they are real and trustworthy.
Evaluate Support Resources Have you come across an amazing finding from NASA or another organization? If there is a source reference in the article, you can easily check it to make sure it supports the claims made.
Check the Release Date Internet news is very topical, but it happens that news that is several years old appears and is published as being up-to-date. And of course, in the current context, it can seem sensational. Be interested in whether the communicated story is current and therefore relevant.
Is it a Joke? Some news may not be fake news, even if it is untrue. It may only be part of exaggeration and/or satire. Consider this possibility as well.
Check your own Prejudices Own prejudices also influence thinking about information. Some messages can fit too well with what each of us wants or doesn’t want to hear. It is then easier to believe fake news.
Ask the Experts Much false information benefits from ignorance of the issue. Whether it is medicine, engineering or the space program, there is always an expert who really knows the subject and can tell you whether the news is actually true or if the author of the article is just fabricating to increase viewership. So if you are unsure of any information, try looking for an expert.
