Online battle ongoing as fake news circumnavigate the world
PARIS: F alse i nformation is sa turating po litical d ebate worldwide an d un dermining an a lready w eak l evel of t rust in t he m edia a nd i nstitutions, spreading f urther t han ever on powerful social networks.
US P resident D onald T rump has p opularised the t erm “fake news”, u sing i t m ainly a s an accusation levelled at the media, and i t i s in creasingly u sed b y politicians from Spain to China, Myanmar or Russia.
“Fake n ews” h as b een generalised to m ean a nything from a m istake to a p arody or a deliberate mis interpretation o f facts.
At t he s ame t ime, t he proliferation o f f alse o nline information i s in creasingly visible in attempts to manipulate elections, n otoriously surrounding Trum p’s 2 016 victory. Misinformation
Nearly two years after Trump’s shock win, debate is still raging on the impact of “fake news” on the presidential campaign.
The bu ild-up s aw n umerous examples o f h oaxes a nd fa lse news stories — one about Hillary Clinton’s alleged links to a child sex ring, another about the Pope purportedly e ndorsing Trum p — which were shared massively and so me b elieve c ould h ave swung v otes to t ip T rump to victory.
Misinformation ha d“a significant i mpact” o n v oting decisions, ac cording t o Oh io State U niversity r esearchers, who qu estioned vo ters a bout whether t hey be lieved ce rtain false stories.
The r esearchers s aid i t w as impossible t o p rove th at f alse information h ad c hanged t he course of the election but noted it would have required a change in just 0.6 p er cent of v oters, or 77,744 people, in three key states, to a lter t he e lectoral c ollege outcome.
Since the election, Trump has denounced a s “fake ne ws” a ny information that displeases him while h is a ides h ave of fered a mixture of truth and distortions, sometimes de scribed a s “alternative facts.”
This has hurt the credibility of the US news media and led some to d escribe t he c urrent pe riod as a “post-truth er a” — a n a ge without a shared reality.
“The truth is no longer seen as important,” s aid J ohn H uxford of I llinois S tate U niversity, whose research focuses on false information, a dding t hat “lies and f abrication eve n s eem t o bolster o ne’s re putation a nd political p rowess a mong t heir core supporters.”
Some studies suggest that more people ar e w illing t o b elieve falsehoods a s pa rtisanship h as risen. A 2017 survey, for example, showed t hat 5 1 pe r ce nt o f Republicans believed that Barack Obama wa s b orn i n K enya, despite the hoax being debunked dozens of t imes. M any p eople reject a ccurate i nformation which is “discomforting to their self- concept or worldview,” noted a st udy b y P rofessor Br endan Nyhan of D artmouth C ollege in th e United S tates an d J ason Reifler of t he U niversity of Exeter in the UK.
“Some misinformed individuals may a lready be a t l east t acitly aware of the correct information but ( are) u ncomfortable acknowledging it.”
In 2 018, t he a verage l evel of trust in th e n ews, a cross 3 7 countries, re mained re latively stable a t 4 4 pe r cent, according to a p oll b y Y ouGov f or t he Reuters I nstitute for t he S tudy of J ournalism. B ut R euters Institute r esearch a ssociate Nic N ewman w arned i n t ext accompanying the report: “Our data s how th at c onsumer tru st in n ews r emains w orryingly low in m ost c ountries, o ften linked t o high l evels o f m edia polarisation, and the perception of undue political influence.”
This is e xacerbated b y t he spread of f alse i nformation by a uthority fi gures. I n s ome countries th is can g o f ar. F or example i n U kraine, w here authorities s taged th e d eath of Ru ssian jo urnalist A rkady Babchenko a t t he en d of M ay. Kiev said the move was justified to foil a re al plot to a ssassinate Babchenko.
The staging, broadcast in good faith b y me dia w orldwide, “is a go dsend f or p aranoid p eople and co nspiracy t heorists. A t a time when confidence in news is so low, a s tate playing with the truth in this way makes things even m ore co mplicated,” sai d Christophe D eloire, se cretary general of jo urnalism watchdog Reporters Without Borders.
Political a gendas a lso a ffect the cr edibility of t he m edia. Recently, t he F rench me dia regulator CSA issued a warning to RT’s ( formerly Russia Today) French of fice, ac cusing i t of misrepresenting facts in a news bulletin about Syria.
The f ollowing da y, R ussia’s communications w atchdog s aid it might st rip the F rance 2 4 TV channel of its Russian operating license, accusing i t o f violating a Russian media law introduced in 2 015 w hich r estricts f oreign ownership o f m edia companies in Russia to 20 per cent or less.
Trust in tr aditional m edia remains h igher th an f or s ocial networks, a ccording t o th e YouGov poll. Only 23 per cent of those polled said they trusted the news they found on social media.
More th an h alf ( 5 4 p er c ent) agreed o r s trongly ag reed t hat they were concerned about what is real and fake on the internet.
“The v ery fa ct t hat so m any people a re ci rculating a p iece of m isinformation g ives it credibility,” s aid H uxford, o f Illinois State University.
A st udy r eleased b y t he Massachusetts I nstitute of Technology ( MIT) i n M arch found t hat f alse n ews s preads more rapidly on Twitter than real news d oes. M any s ee F acebook as b eing th e m ain v ehicle f or spreading f alse in formation in recent years.
The C ambridge A nalytica public re lations disas ter, i n which Fa cebook a dmitted t hat up to 87 million users may have had t heir d ata h ijacked b y t he British c onsultancy fi rm, came on top of widespread criticism of the s ocial ne twork’s pr opensity to s pread a nd a ccentuate la rge amounts of c ompletely f alse information.— AFP