My View

There’s a simple reason why people fall for Fake News. It wouldn’t exist if not for this reason. People, generally, want to know things. But they also want things done fast. So, they try to do the least but most important research first, which is where Fake News flourishes. It relies on headlines to tell the story that no one wants to go through 2,000 words to read. Fake News is about ten second video clips cut out of a half hour segment to show “what really happened”. It’s all true, but tiny truth is more damaging than a giant lie.

Clickbait has the same functionality, but for the most part, those are part of opinion outlets or editorials. Those are opinions meant to guide people by emotion. Insinuating that something is wrong or foul with a person’s favorite hobby will get them to click the article based on the headline, only for the article itself to be much more reserved or irrelevant and without citation. Emotional predation is how most Fake News spreads. First it makes you feel something, which makes you want to believe it to validate that feeling.

Quote mining has also led to Fake News allegations. Things people said, willfully removed from context, to force a different meaning onto them than they originally intended. It’s been used against politicians, media personalities, celebrities and small personal circles. The damage comes when there is no refutation. When that’s all people have to go on, they will believe it as fact.

And that is the greatest danger that Fake News poses. It’s easy to laugh it off when it’s so distant. Political scandals are so old they’ve been parodied in pop culture for decades. Celebrity gossip and trivia is the same. People see what’s happening and mock it without understanding it. But those things are happening to Human Beings, too.

Where Fake News becomes destructive has nothing to do with pushy parent groups on Facebook demanding someone raise their baby a certain way. It’s not about getting sent a thousand messages on Twitter because you read a headline wrong. Those are inconvenient. Fake News hurts people when it’s more believed than the Truth.

News does not mean The Truth. In fact, news reporters get things wrong frequently. New and developing stories will have errors, and if reporters state those errors at once point it is up to them to correct themselves later. If they don’t, the Fake News is all people know. And sadly, there’s no accountability for it.

Because Fake News has become a punchline in online spaces, a joke to refer to news groups or journalists that people simple don’t like, it is difficult to call out the Fake News when it happens, or promote the Real News if it comes in later. The hastiness to be accepted, to believe what everyone else believes or be left behind, has turned Fake News into a worse problem than whatever it misreports. It’s up to them - to you - to do a better job. Fake News leads to Fake Beliefs, and Fake People against the Real ones...