🗞️ Fake News

Hey,

Welcome to the issue.

While fake news is as old as language, it certainly feels like it may be a bigger issue than ever. Or is that just fake news too?

Maybe not, given Authentic is Merriam-Webster’s 2023 word of the year.

In other words: There’s nothing more important in a democracy than a well informed electorate.

Let’s dive in 🔎

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🧠 The Problem

• Fake news is media that is false, inaccurate or misleading.

• It ranges from misinformation (where false information is created or spread unintentionally) to disinformation (where it is done intentionally).

• From clickbait to propaganda, fake news is as widespread as it is destructive, and is leading to the erosion of truth.

🧶 How big’s the issue?

• 86% of online users, or more than 4 in 5 people, have been exposed to fake news globally.

• Fake news is 70% more likely to be retweeted than true news, and engagement on Facebook is 5x higher for fake news sources.

• Fake news is a global problem, impacting politics in Brazil, public safety in India and extremism in New Zealand.

🌎 Why it matters?

• Fake news costs the global economy $78bn/year. If we include indirect costs such as brand damage and strains on public institutions, the cost could be much closer to $100bn/year.

• Fake news has led to a general decrease in trust of news sources, especially when accessed online via search or social media.

  • People learn through reporting: from Pheidippides running from Marathon to Athens to deliver the news of Athenian victory over Persia, to a Physics teacher explaining how e=mc² . If we increasingly won’t believe what we haven’t witnessed ourselves, the way we learn and share knowledge as a people will break down. Trust and truth are at risk.

• Consumption of fake news, as well as the concern around it, can lead to anxiety, depression, insomnia, anger and fear.

• The spread of fake news has lead to stock sell-offs, insurrection and even deaths.

🌱 Root Causes

• Social and cultural factors (both cause and are exacerbated by fake news):

  • Anti-intellectualism: A growing mistrust of ‘experts’ became very apparent during the COVID pandemic.

  • Anti-science: Scientific evidence, consensus and even ‘truths’ are increasingly politicised.

  • Agnotology: Or the ‘spreading of ignorance’ by often political, religious or commercial interests disrupting the distribution of knowledge.

• Fuelled by AI, which has made the creation of fake news much more accessible and false media harder to discern from fact.

• Fuelled by social media, which has supercharged the speed of engagement with fake news.

🫵 Who’s solving it?

The content moderation market was valued at $19.9bn in 2022.

• Snopes / Fact Check / Full Fact: Fact checking sheds light on the truth when readers don’t know what or who to trust.

• Buster.ai / Sensity.ai / Blackbird.ai / Zefr: Powered by machine learning these AI tools expose disinformation at scale.

• Content Authenticity Initiative / Leica & Sony / Truepic: Using tech to ‘watermark’ media ensuring authenticity and provenance.

• Meta / X / YouTube / TikTok: The platforms that facilitate fake news are also trying to tackle it.

  • But, there are signs that they have been reducing their resources that tackle fake news, so they may just be virtue signalling.

Even more below - including:

• 8 predictions on the future of Fake News

• 9 ideas to solve the issue

• 4 resources to dive even deeper