FAKE NEWS, HALF TRUTHS AND LIES
Frank Ojei writes that verifying information before publication is too serious to ignore
Back in the first century, Gaius Octavian, the politician and adopted son of Julius Caesar, scored an important victory in the final war of the Roman Republic by disseminating disinformation about Marc Anthony who was his brother-in-law and Caesar’s confidante. Spreading short messages a la tweets on coins, Octavian spread rumours that his rival general was a drunk, a womaniser and under the thumb of the famous Egyptian princess and seductress, Cleopatra.
The false stories led Anthony to commit suicide in 31 BC and the ascension of his antithesis to the position of first emperor of Rome. That incident remains perhaps the earliest known example of the scourge of fake news that was abundant in the run-up to the 2015 Nigerian presidential polls and that of the US a year after.
Governments and brands have always sponsored disinformation to spin the truth and the coming of the internet has also served to amplify things out of proportion. A tweet or post from one corner of the world can be viewed simultaneously by millions of viewers and readers across other parts of the world. One situation study by The New York Times showed how a tweet from an account with less than 40 followers could garner 16,000 retweets, thanks to bots which use Artificial Intelligence (AI) to promote specific [fake] content. From WhatsApp groups to Facebook pages and Slack channels, fake news is everywhere. And we as citizens are helping to spread it.
In the run-up to the 2015 presidential polls in Nigeria, rumours were also spread in the media by both the Peoples Democratic Party and All Progressives Congress, and also in the aftermath of the electoral process. Mallam Nasir el-Rufai, governor of Kaduna State alleged on October 1, that the Goodluck Jonathan government had wasted about N64 billion organising Independence Day celebrations between 2011 and 2014. It emerged later that El-Rufai had simply conjured statistics out of thin air because what had been spent in reality was only a fraction of the figure. The governor had deliberately skewed the facts to score cheap political points and his
ONE OF THE GOLDEN RULES OF JOURNALISM IS TO TRUST, BUT VERIFY. IN AN AGE WHERE CITIZEN JOURNALISM IS ON THE RISE, IT IS PERTINENT FOR CITIZENS TO FOLLOW THIS RULE TOO
tweets made the news rounds, almost triggering physical clashes between the support base of both Jonathan and Buhari. He never apologised, but even if he had, it would never have gone as viral as his unfounded allegations, which is the paradox of it all; fake news spreads like wildfire but rebuttals are confined to sympathetic media which remain on the periphery of the larger discourse.
Last month, a video alleging that a sample of a certain vegetable oil brand, Laziz Oil, turned to ‘tar’ if left too long on the cooker made the rounds on Twitter. There were arguments and counter-arguments, threads and several articles published about this ‘killer’ vegetable oil. But it turned out to be a hoax as well from a lady who wanted to up her following on social media.
Stunts like these clip at a brand’s reputation, perception and consequently business share. Customers are understandably first interested in protecting their health before verifying such videos and withdrawal of their patronage could be irreversible.
It is pertinent to stress, given how hard it is to distinguish the truth from falsehood, that incidents like these also cripple trust in the media when these reports eventually turn out to be fake. In the case of the US elections, beneficiaries of the false articles then began to instigate the people against established and accurate media, labelling them as ‘fake news sites’. In Nigeria, several news media were derided as fake for making the mistake of publishing unverified rumours and their editorial process exposed for low-level checks failure.
Social media networks, newspapers, blogs, websites, and forums need to take responsibility and protect their turf from being a hotspot for lies and fictitious reports emanating from thin air. However, as a people, we ought to sharpen our discerning powers and not take things at face value.
One of the golden rules of journalism is to trust, but verify. In an age where citizen journalism is on the rise, it is pertinent for citizens to follow this rule too.