Doesn’t it seem like every day recently you hear the term “fake news” multiple times?
Getting tired of it?
Trump seems to have glorified the term far beyond its original meaning. The way he uses it, fake news is everything from some article or report by the term’s definition to some article or report he doesn’t like, even if true.
We need TRUTH!
Instead of finding TRUTH, we have degraded into chaos here and around the world because of unsubstantiated beliefs masquerading as fact.
But we have to start with the basics.
A real definition for fake news is:
material in whatever format intended for distribution which one
deliberately puts forward, knowing it is not true.
The concept of fake news isn’t new. It’s been used for a long time, though it may have been known by different names. The earliest documented case of it I’ve found is around World War 1.
But if the communication or other capability were somehow there, We don’t know why earlier conflicts wouldn’t have used it, too. Maybe they could have used signal mirrors, smoke, or trumpets?
In wars, it has been used to
– confuse or deceive an enemy about some event, time, action, or location
– to create a certain mood or emotion.
It was then, and may still be, called propaganda or psychological warfare.
One interesting case by the Performing Arts was the radio broadcast by Orson Welles of a version of H.G. Wells “War of the Worlds” novel on Halloween, in 1938.
The radio play was written to be presented as a series of news bulletins on the radio. The play, presented in a time when there were real concerns about a future war with Germany, reportedly created panic in some areas of the country.
There are at least a couple of problems related to what is called fake news.
1 – the generation/production of such items, and
2 – those who make false accusations of something being fake news when it is not
Let’s look at #1 – the generation/production:
There are apparently three major purposes for producing fake news in media today:
a) greed
b) sway public opinion
c) for “fun”
(a) Greed.
People create websites specifically for promulgating this type of material because they make money from getting people to click on an ad to read the item. A Google search indicates there are over a billion websites existing on earth today. That’s 1B, with a B. Some significant but unknown portion of those are suspected to be fake news generators.
(b) Sway public opinion
People can make statements about something in attempts to change others’ opinions.
There were reports, accusations, or whatever, about the supporters of political parties spreading fake news during the 2016 campaigns.
These continue today.
(c) “Fun”
People do things sometimes just because it gives them something to do, because it might bring them some notoriety, or because they can brag about it to their peers.
For #2 – false accusations:
We mentioned Trump’s activities previously. In his case, it doesn’t appear whether he has a clue if something is true or not?
Another instance (reported by NPR) occurred where a Colorado Legislator labelled an op-ed in a local newspaper fake news, when it only encouraged him to move forward on a bill they supported.
People don’t realize how foolish they appear when making such statements.
The problem we all have now is, how do we deal with this?
News organizations and some social media networks have begun sending posts out to fact-checking organizations in attempts to determine the truth value of certain statements.
But there is no way to do a full checking of everything that comes out on an open internet. Many of the sites generating fake news are overseas. Current international law can never deal with this.
Is it still fake news after another entity picks it up and presents it? Yes. Once fake news, always fake news.
We wish we could provide a nice solution, but….
We repeat: We have degraded into chaos here and around the world because of unsubstantiated beliefs masquerading as fact.
Our goal ought to be TRUTH. We need to have honest, truthful discussions of real, true facts so we, as supposedly intelligent creatures, can arrive at proper conclusions.
And we need to fix “biased news” as well. That may be a later blog.