Global InformationFake news information
 | This article may be too long to read and navigate comfortably. When this tag was added, its readable prose size was 18,300 words. (January 2024) |
Fake news or information disorder is false or misleading information (misinformation, including disinformation, propaganda, and hoaxes) presented as news. Fake news often has the aim of damaging the reputation of a person or entity, or making money through advertising revenue.[1][2] Although false news has always been spread throughout history, the term fake news was first used in the 1890s when sensational reports in newspapers were common.[3][4] Nevertheless, the term does not have a fixed definition and has been applied broadly to any type of false information presented as news. It has also been used by high-profile people to apply to any news unfavorable to them. Further, disinformation involves spreading false information with harmful intent and is sometimes generated and propagated by hostile foreign actors, particularly during elections. In some definitions, fake news includes satirical articles misinterpreted as genuine, and articles that employ sensationalist or clickbait headlines that are not supported in the text.[1] Because of this diversity of types of false news, researchers are beginning to favour information disorder as a more neutral and informative term.
The prevalence of fake news has increased with the recent rise of social media, especially the Facebook News Feed, and this misinformation is gradually seeping into the mainstream media. Several factors have been implicated in the spread of fake news, such as political polarization, post-truth politics, motivated reasoning, confirmation bias, and social media algorithms.[1][5][6][7][8]
Fake news can reduce the impact of real news by competing with it. For example, a BuzzFeed News analysis found that the top fake news stories about the 2016 U.S. presidential election received more engagement on Facebook than top stories from major media outlets.[9] It also particularly has the potential to undermine trust in serious media coverage. The term has at times been used to cast doubt upon credible news, and former U.S. president Donald Trump has been credited with popularizing the term by using it to describe any negative press coverage of himself. It has been increasingly criticized, due in part to Trump's misuse, with the British government deciding to avoid the term, as it is "poorly-defined" and "conflates a variety of false information, from genuine error through to foreign interference".[10]
Multiple strategies for fighting fake news are currently being actively researched, for various types of fake news. Politicians in certain autocratic and democratic countries have demanded effective self-regulation and legally-enforced regulation in varying forms, of social media and web search engines.
On an individual scale, the ability to actively confront false narratives, as well as taking care when sharing information can reduce the prevalence of falsified information. However, it has been noted that this is vulnerable to the effects of confirmation bias, motivated reasoning and other cognitive biases that can seriously distort reasoning, particularly in dysfunctional and polarised societies. Inoculation theory has been proposed as a method to render individuals resistant to undesirable narratives. Because new misinformation pops up all the time, it is much better timewise to inoculate the population against accepting fake news in general (a process termed prebunking), instead of continually debunking the same repeated lies.
- ^ a b c Hunt, Elle (December 17, 2016). "What is fake news? How to spot it and what you can do to stop it". The Guardian. Retrieved January 15, 2017.
- ^ Schlesinger, Robert (April 14, 2017). "Fake news in reality". U.S. News & World Report.
- ^ "The Real Story of 'Fake News'". Merriam-Webster. Retrieved March 21, 2024.
- ^ Soll, Jacob (December 18, 2016). "The long and brutal history of fake news". Politico Magazine. Retrieved March 25, 2019.
- ^ Himma-Kadakas, Marju (July 2017). "Alternative facts and fake news entering journalistic content production cycle". Cosmopolitan Civil Societies. 9 (2): 25–41. doi:10.5130/ccs.v9i2.5469.
- ^ Cite error: The named reference
wired.comwas invoked but never defined (see the help page). - ^ Woolf, Nicky (November 11, 2016). "How to solve Facebook's fake news problem: Experts pitch their ideas". The Guardian. Retrieved January 15, 2017.
- ^ Borney, Nathan (May 9, 2018). "5 reasons why 'fake news' likely will get even worse". USA Today. Retrieved February 17, 2019.
- ^ Cite error: The named reference
Silverman_11/16/2016was invoked but never defined (see the help page). - ^ Disinformation and 'fake news': Interim Report: Government Response to the Committee's Fifth Report (Report). Parliament of the United Kingdom. October 9, 2018. Retrieved March 21, 2024.