Recent years have seen a surge of fake news so prevalent that the term even became the Collins Dictionary “2017 Word of the Year.” While President Donald Trump did not invent the term “fake news,” he popularized its modern usage by labeling news sources that have published unfavorable op-eds and reported skewed angles as fake. And others, including authoritarian governments, have followed suit. In Myanmar, a security official told the New York Times that the Rohingya genocide “is fake news.” Additionally, the Russian Foreign Ministry now stamps the word “FAKE” on news articles that it dislikes.
Evidently, fake news does not simply denote falsity to many people. Some individuals label biased reporting and information that they dislike or disagree with as “fake” so as to discredit entire news organizations. A Gallup survey even found that 42 percent of Republicans consider accurate news stories which describe politicians negatively to be fake news. In an era in which true stories are denounced as false and fake stories are hailed as genuine, it becomes undeniably difficult to be accurately informed.
Fake news encompasses a large variety of problematic content. It is rarely ever black and white. According to Claire Wardle, research director of the non-profit First Draft News, there are seven types of fake news: satire/parody, false connection between content and cover, misleading content, false context, imposter context, manipulated content and fabricated content. Misleading content reports news that is partially true, but asserts a false claim. Imposter content is false news that appears to come from a reputable source. But, manipulated content—content with true information that is maliciously manipulated—seems to be most common. For example, Trump himself ironically misquoted his source, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, while trying to accuse mainstream media of lying about the Russian collusion issue.
Although fake news can be difficult to identify, the ultimate reason for its rapid spread is social media. The internet is a paradise for false news perpetrators mainly because it feeds users the information they want to hear. That is hardly surprising given a society in which, according to the American Press Institute, the majority of people rarely read further than the headlines. For instance, the hoax article “Pope Francis Shocks World, Endorses Donald Trump for President, Releases Statement” was published on an uncredible website during the 2016 election. Despite the blatant signs of falsification, the story still garnered nearly one million Facebook engagements. If America’s public is unable to make wise and rational decisions because of fake news, democracy as a whole is at stake.
As future voters, students must investigate anything that is identified as “fake news.” The end of fake news is nowhere near in sight, so it is up to students to be conscious of the defining aspects of fake news and consider the credibility of sources.