FAKE.COM ECONOMY ENGAGES, ENRAGES
Fake content is a genuine problem on the Internet.
Between fake news that sways elections, fake apps that trick shoppers and fake book reviews that stymie sales, the Web has seen a surge in fantastic, misleading and outright false messaging that threatens to make the truth hard to find.
Our 21st- century bonfire of digital falsehoods is fueled by a unique set of circumstances that blends our innate interest in the outrageous with the explosion of a social- media echo chamber. Not surprisingly, this has created an opportunity for shadowy entrepreneurs to exploit both for profit. If you’ve yet to run across this faux phenomenon, your introduction likely isn’t far off. The problem is mushrooming fast.
One researcher recently tallied a list of nearly 60 fake online news sites, ranked based on whether they peddled outright fabrications or sly satire. Analytics firm Jumpshot looked at more than 20 known fake news sites and determined Facebook referrals accounted for half of their traffic, resulting in millions of likes.
Fake apps present Google and Apple with a Whack- AMole problem, where as soon as an offending app is removed, others pop up in its place.
And Amazon recently removed several reviews of a new book by Fox News personality Megyn Kelly. At one point, more than half were one- star thrashings, according to Slate, and the book’s publisher said it was an effort to discredit the journalist and Trump foe.
In truth, the venom in a spiteful book review likely gives away the bias of its author. And 99 cents lost on an app that promised to give your phone X- ray powers won’t ruin your day.
But fake news arguably packs the power to dilute the importance of a free press, supplanting traditional fact- based journalism with shareable and often unsourced news snacks that reinforce a specific point of view. For instance, a story that Pope Francis had endorsed Donald Trump for president was shared hundreds of thousands of times before it was debunked.
“I’m a fan of The Onion, but it’s been made extremely clear it is satire. It is one thing to lampoon news, it is another to fabricate it. This, increasingly, is driving our lives,” says Jessica Pucci, Ethics & Excellence Professor of Practice, Walter Cronkite School of Journalism & Mass Communication at Arizona State University. Jeanne Bourgault, CEO of Internews, a non- profit that ensures access to reliable news in 90 countries, says she has spent decades fighting the spread of propaganda and hate speech in places such as
the Soviet Union, South Sudan and Kenya.
“It’s starting to feel like situations in other countries,” she says, adding U. S. citizens can be trained to spot fake news but are better served by subscribing to trusted, reputable local media.
Ryan Martin, an anger researcher and chairperson of the psychology department at the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay, says studies show anger is the most viral emotion online — and often is what drives people to share content.
“If you truly hate someone or something, it reinforces a negative attitude,” Martin says. “It also rationalizes things, such as a belief in voter fraud and the birther movement. Articles play into our already congruent narrative about candidates.”
And most of those articles are shared via social network circles. Popular platforms such as Twitter and Facebook allow faux information to rocket worldwide at the click of a mouse or touch of a screen.
Social sites represent the go- to news source for 62% of adults, up from 49% in 2012, a Pew Research Center survey says.
What’s more, the very nature of social media platforms prioritizes news that boasts the most engagement, which when shared repeatedly, creates a viruslike effect that spreads the disinformation before it’s called out as fake.
The very real pitfalls include the suggestion that fake news on Facebook might have played a role swaying the election, as exemplified by fake reports trumpeting that Hillary Clinton had been arrested by federal agents before Election Day.
The solutions include everything from having social media platforms better patrol their sites to simply getting used to taking everything online with a healthy dose of skepticism.
Often, perpetrators of these deceptions aren’t bored teens but organized enterprises that cash in on the traffic generated by sites that often resemble the originals, including an outfit out of Tbilisi, Georgia, that created a fake USA TODAY website with the URL www.usatodaycom.com.
Facebook and Google have heard the hue and cry. Google announced it would ban fake news websites from using its online ad service, and Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg promised to develop better ways for users to identify fake content, while reiterating he doesn’t feel his platform should be “arbiters of truth.”
To Millennials, this new rash of fake news might seem alarming. But fabricated news accounts, lascivious gossip and sensationalized tabloids have been popular and influential in the U. S. for decades.