Cause and effect

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Before the 2016 US Presidential election, 156 misleading news stories became almost 38 million shares on Facebook.[1] On twitter an analysis of 172 million tweets in the five months preceding the 2016 election indicates that 22 million linked to news outlets and of those, 25% link to fake news or extremely biased websites. [2] It is not possible to calculate what effects this had on the electorate, although it is a fact that in key battleground states the final 2016 Presidential election result was determined on a very small number of votes.[3]

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The impact of fake news on the 2016 election may be impossible to quantify, but it is clear that powerful forces such as the Russian government believed it could be effective. Fake news is a weapon used by Trump to deny malfeasance of his administration as they combat resistance to his political agenda. President Trump uses false facts on twitter to influence public opinion on all his agenda. A striking example is scientific facts which are distorted to present an environment of uncertainty in fields of science that are demonstratively certain, such as climate change.[4]

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The rise of fake news has now escalated to a level where it is not only used to disparage a political opponent but more significantly it is used to create new narratives to try to shape society according to the wishes of a political force.

 

The importance of examining fake news

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Donald Trump’s embrace of fake news as a tool may have begun to garner attention (as shown in the video of his conspiratorial narrative). However it is unclear when it became common for him to define anything that is detrimental to his narrative as fake news. A common journalist’s definition of fake news is, content that intentionally masquerades as news coverage of actual events, to Trump now, it is purely anything that is unsympathetic to his administration.[5] A further rapidly expanding version of fake news by Donald Trump is the making up of facts that do not exist in any manner, Trump will make comments such as "border agents detained 10 terrorists in a short period of time" in order to create a fake news narrative to justify funding to build a wall.[6]

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The rise of fake news is alarming because of the confusion it creates in the public sphere, unpredictability and the lack of clarity as to what is real and what is of critical importance have become perplexing for individuals when they are required to make decisions. The action of politicians can be driven by public sentiment on issues such as on vaccinations, protecting elections, decriminalising drugs, criminalising abortion and restricting immigration, these issues are often influenced and analysed by greater public knowledge. The perceptions of what is truth and what is not truth will drive public sentiment which in turn may influence politicians to act, narratives matter.

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The media landscape currently considers journalism as a shrinking business island that struggles to find an appropriate place to stand in a rising tide. It may be considered that journalistic relevance, including long held views of ethical behaviour or a clear sense of what is right and wrong in journalistic behaviour no longer matters in society. Governments and powerful individuals such as Donald Trump communicate directly to the public without an analytical filter. The fake news narrative of information creation is the latest attack on journalism that traditionally has always be seen as the authority that could hold government to account for actions. All journalists or persons interested in the critical factual examination of power should be concerned and prepared to counter fake news narratives.

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Why does fake news exist?

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Fake news has existed in many forms for possibly centuries as a tool to control the general public, often described over the last 20th century as propaganda, misinformation or by some regimes as government policy in response to an imaginary threat. The most recent variation is information portraying itself as news on the internet by depicting itself as news that is not covered by other tradition outlets. There are several variations of why fake news appears, but they can be divided into three main categories.

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• Click bait; this is used when as outrageous news headline is displayed that if click will generate to the creator payments as part of revenue sharing of the advertisements on a website that the user is directed to when reading the fake news story. This click bait can generate up to $100,000 for a story that is shared many times and they have a history going back to the early 2000’s.[7]

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• Ideological; this fake news is driven by those who wish to assist one side of politics over another. The Russian efforts in the 2016 is the most publicised example of Ideological fake news and can include using popular urban legends or myths that when heard in a news story may appear to hold some truth to the reader, such as President Obama being a secret Muslim or the Pope endorses Trump headlines in a search result.[8]

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• Distorted reality, This is the new normal for the current American President, all news that is not consistent with policy is determined to be fake news, the investigating into Russian interference is “the Russian hoax” or “a total scam” that according to Donald Trump is put forward to the public by main stream media sources. The main stream media sources often rely on reporting the facts based on older principles of truth and fact checking that are considered irrelevant to Trump.[9] Traditional media often uses unnamed sources, this is a tradition in journalism in order to protect those sources from retribution, this fact is now weaponized by Trump who claims that unnamed sources are sources that do not exist, and further indication that all that oppose him as a journalistic are representations of fake news.[10]

 

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Why is fake news effective?

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The reasons fake news is effective is complex, there are some who believe it is a simple case of Heuristics. The term cognitive Heuristics explains how the human mind looks for simple ways to may decisions.[11] When humans are confronted with multiple options for example, the mind will take the quickest and simplest way out. Confronted with three footpaths in a forest all leading to the same place, its easy to select the one that is paved the best for the smoothest journey, a ‘lived experience Heuristic’. If there are multiple options of food to choose in a supermarket then the one most familiar is often deemed safe and selection is made, a ‘familiarity Heuristic’. This process while simple is a core element of human behavior and some consider the reason fake news is effective, by seeing the same report over and over again, ‘the familiarity Heuristic’ signals to the brain the news story must be true.[12] 

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The human mind looks for simple solutions to problems and when seeking truth, familiarity and the correct perceptions of rationality can be lost by the human minds’ need for speed. Studies have indicated that those who may be prone to delusional behavior may also have a tendency to believe fake news more than others, this includes those who believe in belief in clairvoyance or mystic powers.[13] The notion that all those who may believe in mystic powers may be an extreme academic view of behavior, but it indicates there are a range of possible explanations into why fake news is believed by many.

The notion that all news that is against government policy is fake news as expressed by Donald Trump is a statement of specific irony (a fake news statement proposing that all contrary news is fake news) that has been used effectively by many organsiations over a number of years. Right wing politicians, conservative news sites and bloggers in the digital age have used the term fake news to disparage mainstream news organisations, this is a tool used to disparage investigations into criminality and is proving effective in swaying a section of the public.[14]

 

Can the issue be fixed?

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In a recent election in the United States a cyber security firm New Knowledge instigated on behalf of a democratic candidate a fake news campaign against a republican candidate for the senate seat in Alabama. The campaign was unique in that it was instigated by Democratic Party operatives, the party victimised in the 2016 presidential election (as shown by Robert Mueller’s investigation in the 2016 election).[15] The New Knowledge fake news ‘involved a Facebook page for a fake group of Baptists supporting Mr. Moore (the opposing candidate) as a potential ally in their bid to ban alcohol in Alabama’.[16] The close election was won by the Democratic candidate, this is not a illustration of the effectiveness of fake news reporting, it is however indicative that there is a growing movement that the only effective way to combat fake news is with more fake news. It is stated by an activist, “If you don’t do it, you’re fighting with one hand tied behind your back.” Given the way some of Mr. Trump’s backers — here and in Russia — have engaged in such tactics, he said, there was “a moral imperative to do this.”[17]

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A moral imperative that injustice must be met with injustice is an ethical dilemma that requires individuals to make decisions based on unknown outcomes. There are no empirical studies to show that the fight fire with fire approach is effective, but there are also no studies to show that it is not effective. Journalists have traditional taken a view that news should be informative and based on truth presented in an unbiased fashion. In 2019 principled ideals may be naïve when the totality of the threat from fake news narratives - distributed by government (President Trump being part of the executive branch of government), is understood.

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A tradition academic approach might be to stop filtering President Trump. Journalists have been seen as a translators of news. A statement is made, grammar corrections understood, words are interpreted and phrases are often reworded to convey correctly what the impression the source of the news desires to impart. President Trump often rambles in an incoherent manner, the cleaning up of quotes to make them understandable performs an injustice that should cease.[18]

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There is a view that people require training to understand what fake news is and how to respond to it. The website protruthpledge.org states in part ‘Take the Pro-Truth Pledge to encourage politicians – and everyone else – to commit to truth-oriented behaviors and protect facts and civility’ and then outlines the efforts an individual should take to ensure information they encounter is founded in truth. The website appears to show a live counter of those who take the pledge and the total stands at 9,833.[19] A study of the website’s approach is reported to show ‘This techno cognitive solution has shown some early signs of effectiveness’.[22] I would argue the effectiveness of a website seeking to educate through a pledge is not a very practical solution to a need that requires an urgent global response.

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Google has stated that it will spend $300 million combating the spread of misinformation and as the owner of YouTube is in a position to effect some change.[21] On a larger global scale it is argued that a direct approach to the source of fake news could be much easier to implement. Countries have laws and government institutions to prevent false and misleading advertising in a commercial transaction, in Australia it is the ACCC in the USA it is the FCC. It could be argued that as Facebook, Google, YouTube and other commercial websites make a profit from fake news proclamations (through clicks or views) then the content is commercial speech and subject to the rules governing commercial statements.[22] This may not be the ultimate magic bullet to combat fake news but it could go a long way in creating an environment where commercial companies are forced to control, not free speech but any commercial speech that is fake news. It is also worth remembering that free speech guarantees in the United States Constitution does not relate to private companies only government interests.[23]

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Fake news is rising and it was a method of communicating policy directives by a President of the United States and continues to this day, all methods to combat fake news should be implemented as a matter of urgency.

 

 

 

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[1] (Tsipursky & Morford, 2018, p. AA6)

[2] (Bovet & Makse, 2019, p. 2)

[3] (Bovet & Makse, 2019, p. 12)

[4] (Allen & McAleer, 2018, p. 626)

[5] (Holan, 2017, p. 121)

[6] (Jackson, 2019)

[7] (Gentzkow, 2017, p. 217)

[8] (Gentzkow, 2017, pp. 220–222)

[9] (Holan, 2017, p. 124)

[10] (Holan, 2017, p. 127)

[11] (Steinmetz, 2018)

[12] (Steinmetz, 2018)

[13] (Bronstein, Pennycook, Bear, Cannon, & Rand, 2018)

[14] (Waisbord, 2018, p. 1867)

[15] (Mueller III, 2019)

[16] (Rutenberg, 2019)

[17] (Rutenberg, 2019)

[18] (Wolffe, 2017, p. 610)

[19] (Anonymous, 2016)

[20] (Gleb Tsipursky, Fabio Votta, & James A. Mulick, 2018, p. 284)

[21] (Virden, 2018, p. 11)

[22] (Riggins, 2017, p. 1314)

[23] U.S. Const. amend. Amendment I

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References

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Allen, D., & McAleer, M. (2018). Fake news and indifference to scientific fact: President Trump’s confused tweets on global warming, climate change and weather. Scientometrics, 117(1), 625–629. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-018-2847-y

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Anonymous. (2016, January 12). Pro Truth Pledge. Retrieved May 20, 2019, from Take the Pro-Truth Pledge website: https://www.protruthpledge.org/

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Bovet, A., & Makse, H. (2019). Influence of fake news in Twitter during the 2016 US presidential election. Nature Communications, 10(1), 1–13. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-018-07761-2

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Bronstein, M., Pennycook, G., Bear, A., Cannon, T., & Rand, D. (2018). T84 DO similar cognative mechanisms encourage delusion-like ideation and belief in fake news? Schizophrenia Bulletin, 44(suppl1), S147–S147. https://doi.org/10.1093/schbul/sby016.360

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Gentzkow, M. (2017). Social Media and Fake News in the 2016 Election. The Journal of Economic Perspectives, 31(2), 211–236. https://doi.org/10.1257/jep.31.2.211

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Gleb Tsipursky, Fabio Votta, & James A. Mulick. (2018). A Psychological Approach to Promoting Truth in Politics: The Pro-Truth Pledge. Journal of Social and Political Psychology, 6(2), 271–290. https://doi.org/10.5964/jspp.v6i2.856

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Holan, A. (2017). The media’s definition of fake news vs Trumps.(2017 Symposium Issue). First Amendment Law Review, 16(2), 128.

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Jackson, J. (2019). Trump’s border wall demand is dressed up with more lies. New Pittsburgh Courier, 110(1), B6–B6.

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Mueller III, R. (2019, March 20). Report on the Investigation into Russian Interference in the 2016 Presidential Election [Government]. Retrieved May 20, 2019, from United States Department of Justice website: https://www.justice.gov/sco

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Riggins, J. (2017). Law Student unleashes bombshell allegation you wont believe! “Fake News” as copmmercial speach. Wake Forest Law Review, 52(5), 1313–1336.

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Rutenberg, J. (2019, January 13). Fake News as ‘Moral Imperative’? Democrats’ Alabama Move Hints at Ugly 2020 [News]. Retrieved May 20, 2019, from New York TImes Media website: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/13/business/media/democrats-disinformation-election-interference.html

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Steinmetz, S. (2018, August 20). How your brain tricks you into believing fake news [News]. Retrieved May 20, 2019, from Time website: http://time.com/5362183/the-real-fake-news-crisis/

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Tsipursky, G., & Morford, Z. (2018). Addressing behaviours that lead to sharing faske news. Behavior and Social Issues, 27, AA6–AA10. https://doi.org/10.5210/bsi.v.27i0.8186

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Virden, D. (2018, January 11). A Media Journey: from Edward R. Murrow to Fake News. American Diplomacy [Politics]. Retrieved May 20, 2019, from American Diplomacy website: http://search.proquest.com/docview/2132671548/

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Waisbord, S. (2018). Truth is What Happens to News: On journalism, fake news, and post-truth. Journalism Studies, 19(13), 1866–1878. https://doi.org/10.1080/1461670X.2018.1492881

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Wolffe, R. (2017). In His Own Words: Why and How Journalists Need to Tell the Truth About Donald Trump. Contemporary French and Francophone Studies, 21(5), 606–611. https://doi.org/10.1080/17409292.2017.1437788

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