...And in other fake news... Zuma gets twins
It all started with Donald J. Trump, the 45th and most unusual US president ever. During his extraordinary and divisive campaign to become president, The Donald popularised the term “fake news” after memes and real stories undermined him, or his opponent, former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
Perhaps the most outrageous, even by the standards of a man who likes his women living with pussycats, was the claim attributed to him allegedly from a 19-year-old story in People Magazine: “If I were to run, I’d run as a Republican,” Trump was quoted in the 1998 articles.
“They’re the dumbest group of voters in the country. They believe anything on Fox News. I could lie and they’d still eat it up. I bet my numbers would be terrific.”
Now, keep in mind that the New York billionaire has ACTUALLY said worse things, including his aforementioned love for grabbing, er, women.
But this particular People quote is false in its entirety. The lie was buttressed with a picture of a much-younger Donald, obviously to show that this happened when he was about 50, not 70. And boy, did it to do the rounds all over social media!
Since then, there have been all sorts of “stories” that appear so true that one has to do a double-take: South Africa has finally approved the selling of dog meat in restaurants starting in February; Health Minister Aaron has warned that doggy style sex (am not explaining that one!) causes cancer and stroke; and many others.
It was perhaps inevitable that after people were done competing over who had the most Facebook or Instagram followers, they’d start competing in the fiction stats.
Silicon Valley has helped a lot, too, by developing devices and software that is so simple, even a youngster can try something.
In the Donald story for example, all its purveyor needed was a story that was believable, a picture from the archives and attribution to a reliable Bricks-and-Mortar news organisation (People is not that, but it’s not so rubbish either).
Our friend “quoted” a story from 1998, which was just before most news organisations started online archiving; and voila, it was sent to friends, who sent to their friends, and other friends, and on and on, until the little concoction took on a life of its own.
The consequences for journalism are obvious and extreme. I am a member of this chattering class, and even I have begun doubting almost every news bit I consume for fear of imbibing fake news.
Now imagine how those who don’t have the time, or inclination to cross-check social media feeds, must feel.
And returning to Trump, the president-elect finally gave the phrase the Kiss of Life, when he labelled CNN “fake news” at a recent press conference.
Trump was enraged when CNN alleged that the big man had been caught on camera with his pants down (really) in a Moscow hotel, and that the Russians were holding this “gun” over his head just as he was about to become the leader of the so-called Free World.
To be fair to the rich man, there’s still no video or audio of his trysts. Just rumours in a dossier put together by a former British spy.
When it comes to spooks and intelligence agencies, South African might be forgiven for thinking that all they do is fabricate dossiers to destroy the reputations of protagonists in the ANC’s internecine succession battles. Elsewhere in the world, spies and their work are taken very seriously — except this once.
We’ve also had a few really bad headlines (think borderline false) in our newspapers over the past few years.
But never before have the tools to create “fake news” been so democratically distributed to every Tom, Dick and Harry and their cat. The biggest casualties will be media workers and their organisations.
As if it were not bad enough that most of our audiences now get their news, both real and fake, from their Facebook and Twitter friends.
Journos should be very afraid. •Sim is an extremely reluctant technophile.