Fake news: what it is and how we can fight it

What is Fake News?

When I think of the term “fake news” I define it as, a story that is false, but appears to viewers to be true by disguising itself as a credible journalistic report. This information is then spread online with the intent to mislead and deceive people. This definition falls in line with other definitions of the phrase from Cambridge Dictionary and Macmillan Dictionary. Fake news is not a new phenomenon though. According to The Guardian, “the age of post-truth stretches as far back as you care to look, there never having been a golden age of perfect transparency.”

Influence of fake news on the 2016 election

The term fake news gained in popularity during the 2016 presidential election when political fake news ran rampant on social media platforms. According to a 2016 study done by Pew Research Center, people tend to seek out information that aligns with their views. Therefore, people are more likely to share fake news on their social media pages if it aligns with their political views, even if they know that the news is fake. A 2017 Stanford study showed that false stories favoring Donald Trump were shared a total of 30 million times during the 2016 presidential election. Some researchers have made the argument that this influx of fake news in favor of Donald Trump swayed the election in his favor, while others believe there is no concrete data to prove that.

Since the 2016 election though, the term fake news has become so commonplace. We have a president who has popularized the term to describe it as any negative news that comes out about him, regardless of whether it is truthful or not. President Trump and his administration have used this term over the past four years to wage a war on journalism that attacks the credibility of journalists and their reporting. According to author and Ithaca College professor, Anthony Adornato, this discourse has been effective for the Trump administration because it plays into the larger mistrust of the news media by the general public.

Are tech companies to blame?

With the majority of fake news being spread across online platforms such as Google, Facebook, Twitter and other social media, technology companies have played a role in allowing fake news to circulate. Through algorithms that favor content that is shared the most or clicked on the most, fake news is spread more widely through online platforms. While these tech companies have started moderating false content by putting warnings on posts that may be false, technology companies have not gone far enough. According to a Washington Post article, these warnings were too little too late for the 2020 presidential election. The article says these labels, “were a win for Twitter and Facebook public relations, which got to look just responsive enough to avoid being blamed for botching another election.”

We can’t solely blame tech companies for the spread of fake news. However, we can urge these companies to go further in fighting fake news and minimizing harm to the public, but I don’t think we should get our hopes up anytime soon. At the end of the day, these companies are looking to make a profit and fake news helps to increase that profit. Therefore, in order to combat these issues right now, we must turn to each other and to journalists to fight fake news.

How to fight fake news

According to a Pew Research Center study, Americans believe that the news media has the most responsibility to reduce the amount of made-up news and information that is spread. We have seen news media in the past few weeks assuming this role more and more as they have been denouncing the lies President Trump has been spreading about the election and claims of voter fraud. Live fact-checking has also become popular in recent years during political speeches or campaign events to give viewers the facts in real time.

However, journalists can go a step further in being more transparent about the reporting process as a whole. Transparency is a fundamental ethical principle in journalism. Journalists can use tools, such as social media, to share more of the behind the scenes reporting process with viewers that could increase their credibility and the public’s general trust in them. Journalists can also team up with educators to increase the general public’s media literacy so people can begin to identify fake news on their own. For more tips on how you can combat fake news, click here.