How to protect yourself from Fake News
Fake news, harbinger of the post-truth era
We have stepped into a new period, one of lesser facts, of weakened truths, one moulded by the ever-expanding social media that have transformed and instrumentalized the interactive power it grants us over information.
The emergence of fake news sprang forth as the increasing flow of information drowned the internet. The phenomenon dates back, in its rise, to the US Presidential elections of 2016.
The purpose of fake news, far from neutral, is to manipulate public opinion and to shape it according to the whims of the manipulator. It always benefits someone, be it a public figure or an interest group. As such, shared information does not rely on facts anymore, but rather on communal opinion. Trump, as a master of scandal and manipulation, is the epitome of this approach. He made it his trademark. Lies become post-truth. And Twitter, in its mechanisms and math, is the perfect environment for it to thrive.
The dwindling faith in the media, and therefore in the journalists, is further diminished by politicians to serve their personal agenda. Although it often comes hand in hand with a swelling distrust towards the media concentration for economic interests, which in and of itself is a rather salutary reaction.
But the scepticism and the distrust do not confine themselves to the media, and spread out more largely to the political and intellectual elites, to the self-proclaimed “experts” and holders of the “word of authority”. Meanwhile, click by click, fake news reporters ascertain their feeling of social belonging and the idea of being heard; they are part of a group, a community. And through it, they satisfy their need of social acceptance.
The stage is set: “If truth does not lie in truth itself anymore but rather in what people wants to believe, priority, in geopolitics, shifts from the reality on the field to what the public opinion will remember, subject as it is to the priorities of global media editorials and social media trends.”[Unofficial translation] Frédéric Charillon
The current information system focuses more on the title and image than on the source.
The image and the title bring together and simulate militantism and engagement. The way publications are evaluated by the number of Likes, with the subsequent inflation of the audience, has become the new standard of legitimacy, leading to the polarisation of society between those “in favour” and those “against”: an obvious consequence which entails the death of debate.
However, to be a free and responsible citizen, everyone should develop their critical thinking and learn to check their sources, both online and offline.
We need to learn (or re-learn?) how to question what we think we know. A page on the French government website offers a guideline which we have translated here in its entirety:
The author
The author is often mentioned at the beginning or at the end of an article, by their full name or their initials, although they might write under a pseudo, for an organism or remain unnamed. In any case, it is equally important to check the legitimacy of the author: do they have expertise on the subject or not? Sometimes, you can access their biography and list of publications via a hyperlink.
The author’s objectives
The author can state facts or express an opinion: those are two very different things.
The site’s and its editor’s nature
A blog, an institutional webpage, an online newspaper, a social network… a site’s nature can be very diverse and can hint at the quality of a given information. The same goes for the editor: they can represent a national or foreign media group, a political party, a company, an association, an individual…
The site’s objectives
A website can pursue a variety of objectives such as selling, informing, militating, persuading, manipulating, scaring, or gaining fame. Depending on the site’s objectives, the information presented will either gain or lose relevance.
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The site’s lay-out
Structure, user-friendliness, clarity of the language, type of ads… a site’s lay-out sometimes gives away how trustworthy the information can be.
The source
The source weighs heavily on whether the information can be trusted or not. Knowing where a citation or statistic comes from, when possible, allows the reader to refer to the source directly. Some pages even include hyperlinks that facilitate this process.
The information’s range of dissemination
It is important to compare and cross-check sources to determine whether and how the same piece of information appears on other platforms.
The information’s origination
It is equally important to know when the reported facts took place. For instance, in some cases, fake news is based on pictures taken out of context to comment information fresh from the oven. The caption, the article’s date of publication, the metadata can all offer precious information.
The information’s overall coherence
Typically, when the image does not correspond to the caption and vice versa, it should alert the reader regarding the information’s trustworthiness.?
What do the comments say?
Comments sometimes underline incoherencies in the information given and, therefore, can prove useful to determine its trustworthiness.
In addition, you can also subscribe to online platforms to help you organize your search, filter your sources and establish your own access route to data (See Cikisi ).
Through this method, it becomes easier to constitute a multisource press review by selecting, filtering, analysing and cross-checking the information. This way, you will get closer to qualified factual journalistic work.
And to cover all bases, various websites are there to help you avoid fake news (through fact checking):
“On aime sans raison, et sans raison on hait.” Jean-Fran?ois Regnard
(“We love without reason, and without reason we hate.”)
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Translate By Peeters Olivier