False news

Reporting the truth is an important goal for professional journalists

whose reputation depends on it. ARTICLE 19 works to abolish false
news laws which stifle journalists from reporting in environments that
are often contradictory and rapidly developing.
A number of countries around the world prohibit the dissemination of false information,
even if it is not defamatory in nature.

Sometimes, the ban is formulated as a specific duty for journalists to report truthfully or to
avoid one-sided, distorted or alarmist stories. Such false news provisions are found in the
laws of repressive countries but are rare in the more established democracies and have
been ruled unconstitutional in some.

No international court has yet considered the legitimacy of false news provisions under
international law. However, statements by some UN bodies concerned with human rights
make it clear that false news provisions are inconsistent with the guarantee of freedom of
expression, particularly if they are enforced through the criminal law. Commenting on the
domestic legal system of Cameroon, the UNHRCm stated that the prosecution and
punishment of journalists for the crime of publication of false news merely on the ground,
without more, that the news was false, [is a] clear violation of Article 19 of the Covenant.

On other occasions, the UNHRCm has reiterated that false news provisions unduly limit the
exercise of freedom of opinion and expression. It has taken this position even with respect
to laws which only prohibit the dissemination of false news which causes a threat of public
unrest. In 2000, the UN Special Rapporteur made a statement on the unacceptability of
imprisonment under false news provisions, saying:

In the case of offences such as ... publishing or broadcasting false or

alarmist information, prison terms are both reprehensible and out of
proportion to the harm suffered by the victim. In all such cases,
imprisonment as punishment for the peaceful expression of an opinion
constitutes a serious violation of human rights.
What is the objection to false news provisions? Reporting in a truthful and balanced way is,
of course, an important professional goal for journalists, especially those that work for
public service broadcasters and are expected to serve the interests of society as a whole.
But writing this goal into law presents several unacceptable dangers.

First, false news laws can have a serious chilling effect on the work of reporters. In
situations of rapidly developing news, or where different sources contradict each other, facts
may be difficult to check. Given that reporters reputations depend on the quality of the
information they provide, they naturally have a strong incentive only to share news which
they are fairly confident is correct, and to warn their audience if a certain fact cannot be
verified.
If, however, journalists have the sword of a false news law hanging over their head, they
might simply decide not to report news that they are not completely certain of at all, for
fear of ending up in jail. As a result, citizens will be deprived of potentially vital information
on current developments.

Second, facts and opinions are not always easily separated. In many cases, opinions are
expressed through superficially false statements, such as sarcastic, satirical, hyperbolic or
comical remarks. For example, someone who describes someone else as a gangster is not
necessarily accusing the other of being involved in unlawful activities.

A ban on false news can therefore easily become a ban on opinions not favoured by the
authorities, endangering the free confrontation between different points of view which lies
at the heart of democracy. This concern was highlighted by Canadas Supreme Court in a
case in which it struck down a false news provision as contrary to the constitutional
guarantee of freedom of expression. The Court stated: The reality is that when the matter
is one on which the majority of the public has settled views, opinions may, for all practical
purposes, be treated as an expression of a false fact.

Third, false news provisions fail to recognise that it is often far from clear what the truth on
a particular matter is. As such, false news provisions are almost by definition impermissibly
vague and, therefore, violate the first part of the three-part test for restrictions on freedom
of expression. Moreover, even if a particular truth is well established, it may not always
remain that way. As G.B. Shaw wrote: New opinions often appear first as jokes and
fancies, then as blasphemies and treason, then as questions open to discussion, and finally
as established truths. This historic observation should give governments cause to reflect
before penalising certain information or ideas as false.

Lastly, the practice of states which still have false news provisions on the books shows the
great potential for their abuse. A cogent example is the case of Lim Guan Eng, deputy
leader of the opposition DAP party in Malaysia. In 1995, Lim raised concerns about the
statutory rape of a 15-year old girl allegedly committed by the Chief Minister of the State of
Malacca. The girl had been sentenced to 3 years protective custody in a home for wayward
girls, while the Chief Minister himself was not prosecuted. Lim questioned why the girl had
been imprisoned. The Malaysian courts found that this inaccurate description of the legal
nature of the girls detention, which was protective custody rather than imprisonment,
constituted false news, and Lim was sentenced to 18 months in jail.

Mindful of the risks of false news provisions, several domestic courts have ruled such
provisions to be unconstitutional, including in Antigua and Barbuda, Canada, Uganda and
Zimbabwe.

FACEBOOK has stepped up the fight against so-called fake news by publishing adverts
in UK newspapers warning about how to spot bogus articles.
The social media giant is under increasing pressure to tackle the problem in the run up to the UK
general election after MPs launched an inquiry in January 2017 as part of a global crack down.

What is fake news?

The idea of fake news came to prominence during the 2016 US Election, with nonsense
articles being shared widely.
Since Donald Trumps election, many have claimed fictitious news stories influenced voters.
Fake news can look legitimate, but the stories behind the headlines are entirely fictional.
Hundreds of fake news sites have been set up, some producing false stories to entertain and
amuse others to peddle their own agendas.
In the run-up to the US election articles headlined, Hillary Clintons Discarded BlackBerry
Turns Up In Goodwill Thrift Store and Yoko Ono: I had an affair with Hillary Clinton in the
70s' were being displayed alongside genuine reports on social media sites and search engines.
One report, which appeared prominently on Google, falsely claimed that Donald Trump had won
both the popular and electoral college vote in the hours following the election which is plainly
untrue.
In the wake of the UK General Election many questioned the effect of fake news spread by
Labour campaigners during the run up to the vote.
BuzzFeed said the top fake election story in the three months before the election was Pope
Francis shocks world, endorses Donald Trump for president, releases statement.
Often fake news websites will have similar URLs the link at the top of a web page to genuine
news organisations in a bid to give themselves greater credibility.
But while established media organisations are signed up to codes of practice as well as being
subject to strict checks and measures, fake sites are largely unaccountable.
Despite the phrase coming to prominence during the 2016 US election, it appears that fake
news was a problem as far back as the 1930s.
A clipping of the Daily Mail from 1939 reveals MPs lambasting the British press over grossly
exaggerated and false reports.
Tory MP for North Salford, John Patrick Morris, asked PM Neville Chamberlain to introduce
penalties over the publication of demonstrably fake news, which resulted in causing anxiety and
loss to the business community, the Stock Exchange and the general public.

What are Google and Facebook doing and why could they face an
advertising boycott?
Social media and search engines have come under fire for displaying the articles, with some
claiming it gives their authors credibility.
Facebook has taken steps to combat the worsening problem by running a national print
advertising campaign in the UK to educate the British public about fake news
The ads, which appear in the Telegraph, Times, Metro and Guardian, list the 10 things to look
out for when deciding if a story is genuine.
This includes checking the article date and website address, as well as making sure it isnt
intended as satire.
The move came a month before the UK general election. It follows similar newspaper ads in
Germany and France earlier this year ahead of their elections.
Facebook also revealed it has deleted thousands of UK accounts and overhauled its news feed in
an attempt to battle fake news.

BOGUS ARTICLES: How to spot fake news

Independent UK fact-checking charity Full Fact provided the following tips on how to spot fake
news:

1) Be sceptical of headlines. False news stories often have catchy headlines in all caps with
exclamation marks.

2) Look closely at the URL. A phoney or look-alike URL may be a warning sign of false news.

3) Investigate the source. Ensure the story is written by a source that you trust with a reputation
for accuracy.

4) Watch for unusual formatting. Many false news sites have misspellings or awkward layouts.

5) Consider the photos. False news stories often contain manipulated images or videos.

6) Inspect the dates. False news stories may contain timelines that make no sense

7) Check the evidence. Check the authors sources to confirm they are accurate.

8) Look at other reports. If no other news source is reporting the same story, it may indicate that
the story is false

9) Is the story a joke?

10) Some stories are intentionally false. Think critically about the stories you read, and only
share news that you know to be credible.
The Government announced it restricted its YouTube advertising pending reassurances from
Google that Government messages can be delivered in a safe and appropriate way.
The video sharing platform was bought by Google in 2006.
The Government joins global brands in moving away from Google advertising after a Times
investigation found rape apologists, anti-Semites and hate preachers were receiving payouts from
publicly-funded online ad campaigns.
Google moved to combat fake news in October 2016 when it added a fact check label to dubious
stories, and grouped them with trusted articles which disputed them.
It also announced plans to try and restrict the revenue of fake news sites by stopping them using
its ad networks.
Facebook says following changes to its trending feed, advertisers are not threatening to boycott
the social media site at present.
A Google spokesman told Reuters: We will restrict ad serving on pages that misrepresent,
misstate, or conceal information about the publisher, the publishers content, or the primary
purpose of the web property.
In February it emerged that smart speaker Google Home had fallen for fake news, telling owners
that Theresa May is secretly a lizard and Barack Obama is planning to overthrow Trump.
Facebook announced policies to prevent adverts showing misleading or illegal content.
And Facebook staff are taking matters into their own hands forming an unofficial task force to
look into allegations that stories shared on the social media site helped warp the election.
Facebooks trending feature has also been updated in a bid to root out fake news by showing
stories covered by several publishers rather than just the most-shared content.
The creator of one fake news site, Southend News Network, defended false stories and told the
BBC they encourage the reader to really look at what theyre going through and think, Is this
real, is this not real?'
Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg said the site would focus on flagging up inaccurate articles
to users rather than banning them.

Why have MPs launched an inquiry?

In January 2017, MPs announced they were launching an inquiry over fears people are being fed
propaganda and lies from non-traditional news sources.
The Culture, Media and Sport Committee officially launched the probe into widespread
dissemination, through social media and the internet, and acceptance as fact of stories of
uncertain provenance or accuracy.
Damian Collins, chairman of the committee, said the trend was a threat to democracy and
undermines confidence in the media in general.
He added: The committee will be investigating these issues as well as looking into the sources
of fake news, what motivates people to spread it and how it has been used around elections and
other important political debates.
The committee is also reportedly considering whether to make it an offence for sites not to act if
something is referred as fake or inappropriate content.
Collins said it would be a massive incentive for tech companies to get their house in
order, the Guardian reported.
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/2188911/fake-news-inquiry-google-facebook-advertising-boycott/

Fake news
SKETCHES By Ana Marie Pamintuan (The Philippine Star) | Updated June 26, 2017 - 12:00am

0 13 googleplus0 0

VIENNA Fake or false news is not unique to the Philippines. Thanks to the internet and social
media, the problem has become a global phenomenon, undermining democracy and a free
press.

The good (and real) news is that the platforms most widely used for spreading fake news are
moving together with media organizations and the academe to address the problem.

Social media giant Facebook, criticized for its role in the spread of hoax news (and in countries
such as the Philippines, trolls), is at the heart of the battle. At the annual summit of the Global
Editors Network (GEN) in this Austrian capital, stopping the proliferation of fake news was
tackled by Facebooks head of news partnerships, Campbell Brown. As her job title implies,
Brown is working to accomplish this mission through partnerships with mass media companies.

Solving the problem of fake news on our platform is very, very important for us, Brown told
hundreds of journalists at the GEN Summit.

Google is doing something similar, and the two giants are not just tilting at windmills. In April,
the two partnered together with BuzzFeed and others to prevent the spread of fake news during
the presidential election in France. This was part of Crosscheck, a coalition of 17 organizations
that worked to track and verify content released publicly online. The verification covered not just
news, photographs and video footage but also memes and comment threads.

In the same month, Facebook launched the News Integrity Initiative, a $14-million project to
enhance media literacy. The fund, donated by non-profits such as the Ford Foundation, John S.
and James L. Knight Foundation, Mozilla and Tow Foundation, is administered by the CUNY
Graduate School of Journalism in New York together with the London School of Economics,
Sciences Po in France and other educational institutions in the Netherlands, Germany and
Denmark.

Opinion ( Article MRec ), pagematch: 1, sectionmatch: 1

CUNY journalism professor Jeff Jarvis, tasked to oversee the project, said at the launch, The
bottom line is to find ways to improve the public conversation and figure out why things spread
the way they do, and what conversations people are having.

Craigslist and Craig Newmark Philanthropic Fund is another donor. Its founder Craig Newmark
said at the launch, In high school US history, I learned that a trustworthy press is the immune
system of democracy. As a news consumer, like most folks, I want news we can trust. That
means standing up for trustworthy news media and learning how to spot clickbait and deceptive
news.

In January, Facebook launched the Journalism Project to promote news or media literacy and
curb news hoaxes. It has also started using flags to fact-check stories that go viral on Facebook.
Experts are still assessing the effectiveness of this system.

***

Despite dizzying advances in information and communication technology, there is no magic

wand that can be waved and instantly filter fake from real, reliable news. But social media
platforms and news organizations are moving to address the problem.

Working for a newspaper, I should be happy that the proliferation of fake news on social media
is driving people back to traditional or legacy media, where journalists have the constant burden
of accountability and the need for accuracy, fact-checking and fairness.

Fewer people are using online ad blockers these days, according to a study conducted by the
Reuters Institute. Thanks to fake news, people are willing to pay for reliable news.

Facebook has a personal stake in combating fake news. The Reuters study showed public trust
in social media declining in the US and UK, two of the most mature news consuming markets,
with peoples trust in social media only about half the trust in conventional media. People are
also increasingly getting news from personal messaging apps such as Viber instead of social
media, according to the Reuters Institute.

In the digital media industry, such a trend, left unchecked, can be irreversible and spell doom
even for industry leaders. An industry giant that fails to keep up and adapt can go bankrupt
virtually overnight.

So we believed Brown when she told us, Our interests in this are all aligned. This has to be a
joint effort.

***

Technology also makes conventional media vulnerable to fake news. Everyone makes
mistakes; traditional media can also slip. In the ancient days, we called it a bum steer
nakuryente. Technology has made the risks higher. So journalists and media companies have
a stake in fighting fake news. Around the world, were all looking for sustainable business
models.

Theres no silver bullet. Theres no one size fits all, Brown told us. But I think journalism has
to be in a healthy place.

Social media platforms and traditional media are also partnering to deal with the news
consumption side. This means educating readers and viewers.
News literacy was a buzz phrase at the just concluded GEN summit. The goal is to help people
to be discerning about information they read or, as Brown put it, to make informed judgments
about what theyre reading online. Were just getting started, Brown, a journalist for 20 years
before joining Facebook, said. The ongoing collaborative efforts, she said, aim to secure a
future where quality journalism not only survives but also thrives.

What technology cannot kill is old-fashioned journalism. Regardless of the medium or the
platform, news will still have to be based on what we were taught in journalism school: hard
facts, informed perspective and nuance, fairness. Only credible news can survive.

Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, June 6) The National Union of

Journalists of the Philippines (NUJP) and the Center for Media Freedom
(CMFR) and Responsibility launched on Monday a journalist-moderated
tool that guards against fake news.

The Google Chrome plug-in Fakeblok flags fake news and misinformation
on Facebook. The NUJP said Filipino journalists came together to list fake
news websites and develop a tool against these.

"Over the past months, unverified posts on social media have been
intentionally spreading misinformation," the NUJP said. "Even state-run
news agencies have come up with, shared, and legitimized fake news."

The NUJP was referring to recent lapses with the state-run Philippine News
Agency, which reported on the Marawi crisis with a photo from the Vietnam
war.

Licensed news agencies, including CNN Philippines, have fallen victim to

hoax websites mimicking their name and logo, but peddling unverified
news. These fake accounts and sites can usually be told apart through a
changed or added character in the name, as well as the absence of an
"about" page.

"We cannot believe everything that we read. We need to constantly

question. We need to reclaim the truth. We need to reclaim our
newsfeeds," the NUJP post added.

The extension notifies the user when a fake site appears on their Facebook
feed, graying out the post and cautioning against clicking or sharing it.
Fakeblok is downloadable from the Chrome store. Fake news sites could
also be reported through fakeblok.com, upon which a group of independent
journalists verify the sites.

"It also lets you submit sites that you think share fake news, for vetting by
an independent group of journalists," the NUJP statement explained. "The
only way that we can figure out fact from fiction is by working together."

As of publishing time, the Fakeblok website listed 873,180 people who

downloaded the extension.

The Fakeblok website also discouraged brands and businesses to pull their
advertisements out of fake news.

"Clicks and advertisements allow fake news sites to thrive," a statement on

the website said. "As long as they profit, they'll keep on churning fake
news."

CMFR previously listed characteristics of fake news sites, particularly fake

websites, which include the lack of identification, unverified aggregated
content, article submissions open to the public, and trending news sites.

Among those CMFR listed as websites to be wary of are Pinoy Trending,

Pinoy Trending News, News Trend PH, Asian Policy Press, Public
Trending, FilipiNews PH, Trending Viral, News Info Learn, All Things Pinoy,
Today in Manila, Definitely Filipino, Trending News Portal, and Classified
Trends.

Fake news also hounded

1896 Philippine revolution
BAGUIO CITYFake news and deceitful allies are not modern phenomena. These
were problems faced by leaders of the 1896 Revolution, according to the great-
grandson of the first Philippine President, Emilio Aguinaldo.
History repeats itself in so many ways, Emilio Aguinaldo Suntay III said, citing as
an example the false information fed to the media by the US government that
presented Filipinos as savages who needed American guidance to justify their
colonization at the turn of the 20th century.
The Americans had designs on the country and had acquired the Philippines from
Spain because of its gold and strategic location, said Suntay, administrator of the
interactive Gen. Emilio Aguinaldo Museum here.
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Anti-imperialist Americans like writer Mark Twain opposed the subjugation of the
Philippines and countered the American yellow press with their own editorials and
news reports, he said.
Suntay also reflected on the naivet of Filipino leaders like Aguinaldo, who allied
with the US government to defeat Spain during the Philippine Revolution.
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But the United States had already bought the Philippines from Spain and staged a
mock battle of Manila Bay to hide the deceit, he said.
Aguinaldo may have realized he was being duped but did not know how to respond to
the Americans, being less a politician like Andres Bonifacio and more astute as a
military tactician, Suntay said.
National Flag Day
Suntay spoke to Baguio officials as he toured them through the Aguinaldo museum on
Sunday, National Flag Day.
He is the grandson of Aguinaldos daughter Cristina, to whom the late general
bequeathed what is arguably the original Philippine flag that was raised in Kawit,
Cavite, as well as the Palanan (Isabela) battle flag, which was kept in a bank vault for
decades.
These flags are on display in a temperature-controlled room in the museum.
In 2015 and 2016, Suntay urged young Filipinos to rally behind the first flag as an
expression of patriotism given the impact of Chinese incursions in Philippine territory
in the West Philippine Sea.
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On Sunday, he said Filipinos should study and be inspired by the military tactics and
skills used by the revolutionary leaders.
Magdiwang vs Magdalo
According to him, people have been more preoccupied with the feud among the
leaders as portrayed in movies, forgetting that the same leaders also agreed to unite
under one military to fight Spain after the revolution broke in 1896.
The 1897 Tejeros Convention in Cavite province was a military assembly and the
participating Magdiwang group, led by Bonifacio, and the Magdalo group, led by
Aguinaldo, were never really rival factions, Suntay said.
They just had different territories which faced a mighty Spanish military machinery
so they had to organize into a single army, he said.
According to him, the Tejeros Convention established the shift of the revolution from
a political campaign waged by Bonifacio and Dr. Jose Rizal to a military campaign
led by Aguinaldo.
Suntay also said the 1899 Battle of Tirad Pass, where the young general Gregorio del
Pilar was killed, was described as a military failure during the Philippine-American
war.
But he said the present generation should see it as our version of 300.
Suntay was referring to the 300 Spartans who died while protecting a mountain pass
against the invading Persian army in 480 B.C.

Read more: http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/900457/fake-news-also-hounded-1896-

philippine-revolution#ixzz4lg49uqSz
Follow us: @inquirerdotnet on Twitter | inquirerdotnet on Facebook

What causes fake news, and what are its

solutions? Journalists from NPR, CNN and
the founder of PolitiFact weigh in
When NPR's David Folkenflik was growing up in the Southern California town of
Laguna Beach, he would occasionally visit an enormous newsstand where readers
could find almost anything they wanted to read.

The Economist was next to Time. The surfer magazines were next to the tattoo
magazines. The fake or dubious news the National Enquirers of the world were
also in their own slots, somewhere in the vicinity of People and Us Weekly.

"You were given visual cues" about what was reputable and what wasn't, said
Folkenflik, NPR's media correspondent. ...Facebook has, by and large, failed to do
that."

Folkenflik's comments, made during a Thursday evening panel at The Poynter

Institute about the rise of fake news, underscored a troubling new reality described by
each of the participants. In a world where the traditional newsstand has been blown
apart by technology and plastered on the social media feeds of millions of Americans,
it's gotten increasingly difficult to discern what's real and what isn't.

Related Training: News Literacy Certificate

Throw in the growing market for hyperpartisan news, a president that seeks to
undermine the mainstream media and humanity's old-as-dust desire to wallow in its
own ideological bubble, and you've got the makings of a serious problem.

The panelists which included CNN senior media and politics reporter Dylan Byers
and PolitiFact founder Bill Adair each suggested different causes and solutions for
the problem of fake news in response to questions from moderator Indira
Lakshmanan, Poynter's Newmark Chair for Journalism Ethics.

At the outset of the conversation, which was sponsored by the Duckwall Foundation,
Byers noted that fake news and popular anger toward the press is not a new wrinkle in
American politics. By way of example, he cited the 1992 re-election campaign of
former U.S. President George H.W. Bush, who used the media as a political punching
bag to fire up his base. His slogan? "Annoy the media, elect Bush.

"I think that clearly for at least two decades...there has been a sense among
conservatives...not just that their issues arent being covered in the mainstream media
almost a sense that theyre being ignored or talked down to," Byers said.

Part of that, Byers said, stems from bias among journalists who tend to focus on more
progressive causes, like LGBTQ rights, over the struggles of coal workers in
Appalachia. Some journalists can't countenance a worldview beyond their own, he
said.

"If you think about it on a grid, youve got the common narrative in the middle
which were really losing hold of, and you have your silos on the left and right,"
Byers said.

Although the current "fake news" epidemic is rooted in historical problems with
misinformation and propaganda, the fracturing of media brought on by the rise of the
internet is partly to blame for the current situation, Adair said.

In decades past, mass media represented a more centrist worldview people opened
the newspaper to read George Will's conservative column and left-leaning alternatives
because they appeared in the same place.

Now, readers are free to make their own media diets, and they're often not balanced,
Adair said.

Isnt it wonderful that we never have to encounter an idea that we disagree with?" he
said, sarcastically. "We have these silos that we can go into that...everyone says what
we believe."
Fact-checking has been a "disruptive" corrective force, but it hasn't been a panacea,
Adair said. The tribal nature of politics means that voters are often dubious or
dismissive of fact-checkers when their side is critiqued yet cheer on the truth squads
when they fault their opponents.

That sentiment was echoed by moderator Lakshmanan, who noted that those fact
checks may be for nothing if readers choose not to act on them or dismiss them out of
hand. Fact-checkers are now being accused of harboring ideological motivations,
causing a kind of inflation on the currency of truth.

"At what point do facts wash over people because they dont believe in facts?"
Lakshmanan asked.

"Politics brings strong passions," Adair responded. "With those passions come love
for your team. And when the referees call one against your team, youre not happy
about it."

The media has occasionally deserved the public's scorn, Folkenflik said. Trumpeting
the existence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq during the runup to the war when
there weren't any; failing to warn the public about Wall Street's impending collapse;
overlooking Trump's support among White suburban women; these were all serious
errors on the part of the mainstream media.

When outlets like FiveThirtyEight and The New York Times recently forecasted a
blowout electoral win for Hillary Clinton, they helped make President Trump's case
that the mainstream media was inaccurate and biased when he won, Folkenflik said.

"Thats known as fallibility," he said. "And thats a problem. Donald Trump said,
See, folks? I told you all along that they lied to you.

Each panelist offered potential solutions to the problem. At the end of the talk, Adair
gave a live demonstration of fact-checking done through Amazon's voice-activated
Echo device. He asked Alexa, Echo's virtual assistant, to fact-check whether former
national security adviser Michael Flynn was given his security clearance by the
Obama administration. Alexa reported for the audience that PolitiFact rated that
statement "true."

Adair also weighed in on the media's incentive to prioritize conflict, personality and
drama over the more straightforward reporting of traditional news organizations like
The Associated Press. Ultimately, the trend toward entertainment-fueled news on
network television will continue to thrive as long as there's an appetite for it, Adair
said.
"Its why there are ice cream parlors and no broccoli parlors," he said.

Folkenflik harkened back to the newsstand in Laguna Beach, noting that platforms
could do a better job of providing signals that indicate which information sources are
reputable and which aren't. An article in The Guardian, Folkenflik said, is probably
trustworthy. An article in The Denver Guardian, by contrast, is totally fabricated. But
if you weren't paying close attention, you probably couldn't tell the difference.

We are not getting the information we need to determine what were deciding to
consume, he said.

Byers put some of the responsibility for stopping the spread of fake and hyperpartisan
news on consumers. He cited as evidence the recent backlash in response to Bret
Stephens' debut column for The New York Times. Stephens, who angered liberals
by arguing that blind certainty on some finer points of the effects of global warming
shuts down a healthy dialogue, sparked outrage and threats to cancel subscriptions. By
disregarding Stephens entirely, Byers said, those on the left were tending to their own
filter bubbles.

Dont shut out the smart, thoughtful Republicans from your life, from your news
diet, just because you dont agree with them, he said.

The last line of defense against fake news and misinformation is common sense,
Byers said. During the campaign, he was often shouted at by voters touting the latest
conspiracy theory. When Byers asked where the voters got their information, the
answer was often the same: the internet.

Increased media literacy and caution when assessing information is key, he said.

Every time the conversation of fake news comes up, we ignore the elephant in the
room, which is: Dont be stupid, Byers said.

Solutions that can stop fake news spreading

By Mike WendlingBBC World Hacks

There may be actual solutions to the spread of fake news.

Fake news - from false celebrity gossip to the fabricated story of Pope Francis
endorsing Donald Trump - became a huge issue during the US election campaign.
Those who peddled falsehoods were motivated sometimes by profit and sometimes by
politics.
British parliamentarians are launching a committee to look at the problem. But globally,
there are various methods being offered to fix it.
The team behind BBC World Hacks - our news solutions-focussed journalism unit - has
been looking into some of the most promising potential solutions.

Humans check the most suspect stories

Facebook, which came under heavy criticism for allowing fake news to be circulated
during the election period, have taken steps to offer combat the issue.
One of those steps is the enlisting of the International Fact Checking Network (IFCN), a
branch of the Florida-based journalism think tank Poynter. Facebook users in the US
and Germany can now flag articles they think are deliberately false, these will then go to
third-party fact checkers signed up with the IFCN.
Those fact checkers come from media organisations like the Washington Post and
websites such as the urban legend debunking site Snopes.com.

The third-party fact checkers, says IFCN director Alexios Mantzarlis "look at the stories
that users have flagged as fake and if they fact check them and tag them as false, these
stories then get a disputed tag that stays with them across the social network."

Another warning appears if users try to share the story, although Facebook doesn't
prevent such sharing or delete the fake news story. The "fake" tag will however
negatively impact the story's score in Facebook's algorithm, meaning that fewer people
will see it pop up in their news feeds.

Mantzarlis says there is as of yet no firm evidence that this actually stops fake news
spreading on a large scale, and there are questions over how sustainable the
programme might be. Facebook is not paying the IFCN members to provide fact-
checking services. There's also nothing stopping the fake news from being posted and
spread in the first place - and perhaps quite widely before being tagged.

"There is a lag, so until and unless a story is flagged as false that story does continue to
spread on the social network," says Mantzarlis.
hat we are now calling fake newsmisinformation that people fall
foris nothing new. Thousands of years ago, in the Republic,
Plato offered up a hellish vision of people who mistake shadows
cast on a wall for reality. In the Iliad, the Trojans fell for a fake
horse. Shakespeare loved misinformation: in Twelfth Night,
Viola disguises herself as a man and wins the love of another
woman; in The Tempest, Caliban mistakes Stephano for a god.
And, in recent years, the Nobel committee has awarded several
economics prizes to work on information asymmetry, cognitive
bias, and other ways in which the human propensity toward
misperception distorts the workings of the world.
What is new is the premise of the conversation about fake news
that has blossomed since Election Day: that its realistic to expect
our country to be a genuine mass democracy, in which people vote
on the basis of facts and truth, as provided to them by the press.
Plato believed in truth but didnt believe in democracy. The
framers of the American Constitution devised a democratic
system shot through with restrictions: only a limited portion of
the citizenry could vote, and even that subset was permitted to
elect only state and local politicians and members of the House of
Representatives, not senators or Presidents. In guaranteeing
freedom of the press, the framers gave a pass to fake news, since
back then the press was mainly devoted to hot-blooded opinion.
They felt protected against a government that came to power
through misinformation, because the country wasnt very
democratic, and because they assumed most people would simply
vote their economic interests.

Only in the twentieth century, as the United States became a

complex modern society with mass media and professional
journalism, did people begin to worry about the fake-news
problem, and when they did they usually came down either on the
side of restricting democracy or restricting the media. (As
American democracy came to include a greater number of
peopleformer slaves, immigrants, and womenlites, including
liberal lites, began to find it more worrisome.) Walter Lippmann
began Public Opinion, published in 1922, with a long quotation
from Platos cave parable, and wound up abandoning the idea that
the press or the public could discern and then pay attention to the
truth. Instead, he wanted to create political observatorieswhat
wed now call think tanksthat would feed expert advice to
grateful, overwhelmed politicians, relegating both the press and
the public to secondary roles in government policymaking.

In the nineteen-twenties, when radio was as new and vastly

influential as the Internet is today, the United States decided not
to create a government-funded news network like the British
Broadcasting Corporation, but instead to turn broadcasting over
to private industry and to regulate it heavily. The American news
world that many people are nostalgic for had only three networks,
which were required to speak in a nonpartisan voice and to do
money-losing public-service journalism in return for the renewal
of their valuable government licenses. That world disappeared
when Ronald Reagan deregulated broadcasting, in the nineteen-
eighties. When cable television and the Internet came along, they
were structured on the more libertarian idea that everybody
should have a voice and everybody should have free access to all
forms of information, including misinformation. It shouldnt be
surprising that a lot of people, both creators and consumers of
journalism, prefer fake news to real news.

So what should we do about journalisms role in non-reality-based

politics? The easy partwhich wont be all that easy, because of
the current economic troubles of journalismis to expand the
real-news ecosystem as much as possible, by training people in
how to do that work and by strengthening the institutions that
will publish and broadcast it. (Along with this goes enhancing the
smaller ecosystem for correcting fake
news: snopes.com, PolitiFact, factcheck.org, and so on.) The hard
part is figuring out what to do about the proliferation and
influence of fake news. Its a sign of our anti-government times
that the solution proposed most often is that Facebook should
regulate it. Think about what that means: one relatively new
private company, which isnt in journalism, has become the
dominant provider of journalism to the public, and the only way
people can think of to address what they see as a terrifying crisis
in politics and public life is to ask the companys billionaire C.E.O.
to fix it.

Our government has many ways of dealing with the natural

tension between public opinion and reliable information: think of
the Federal Reserve Board, the National Science Foundation, the
National Institutes of Health, the Food and Drug Administration,
and the federal judiciary. People grouse about these institutions
one can caricature them, and people do, as litist or as
inexcusably politicalbut, on the whole, they work. Most
countries, including the United States in the past, have found
their way to some parallel structure for real news. Many countries
are stricter about enforcing diversity of private media ownership
than we are, and they find ways to give an economic advantage to
the better news organizations while still maintaining public-
service requirements to shape the behavior of private companies
that use public airwaves.

Its facile and unhelpful to assume that governments role in

journalism can be either nothing or absolute control for
propaganda purposes. There is a big difference between state
media (like the odious Russia Today) and public media (like the
BBC). Most developed countries with press freedom have far more
public media, including multiple government-funded broadcast-
news channels, than we do. National Public Radio is one of the
very best American news organizations, but it has minimal
government funding; the Public Broadcasting System is also
mainly privately funded, and it doesnt maintain a large network
of national and international correspondents the way NPR does.

Its sad that, in the wake of the election of a President who doesnt
hesitate to tell his followers things that simply arent true, we are
not even talking about any of this. If people really think that
something should be done about the fake-news problem, they
should be thinking about government as the institution to do it.

Nicholas Lemann joined The New Yorker as a staff writer in

1999, and has written the Letter from Washington and the
Wayward Press columns for the magazine.
 Read more

Humans flag whole sites as fakes

In 2009, Le Monde, one of the biggest French newspapers, set up a fact-checking unit
called Les Decodeurs (The Decoders). Increasingly the unit is turning its attention to fake
news, and they've devised a web extension called Decodex.

"You just put it on your browser and then when you come to a fake news site you get a
pop up appearing saying 'warning this is a fake news site'," says Samuel Laurent, editor
of Les Decodeurs. "If you click on the tool you will have access to a little paper
describing the website and saying why we think it's not trustworthy."

The extension is linked to a database that Les Decodeurs has compiled which ranks
sites as "fake", "real" or "satire".

But there are several hurdles which likely prevent a relatively simple piece of software
from being the silver bullet for fake news. Users firstly have to be aware of the problem
of false stories. They have to know about the extension and be concerned enough to
download it. And they have to trust Le Monde journalists and the paper's centre-left
perspective.

"We know that we won't convince everyone and we know that fake news readers
already think we are the fake news," Laurent says. "Our goal is to just provide this tool
for people who are really sceptical or who just don't know who to trust.

"People who have already fallen into the fake news vortex, it's too late for them."

Use algorithms to fight algorithms

Algorithms are part of what spreads fake news - because juicy yet false stories which
become popular can be pushed out to new eyeballs by the software that runs social
networks. But some programmers think computer code could also be part of the
solution.

"From an algorithmic perspective it's possible for social media sites to recognise that
website was only created two weeks ago, therefore it's probably likely that this is a less
trustworthy site," says Claire Wardle of journalism non-profit First Draft News.
First Draft is working with Google and Facebook to explore whether they could
incorporate code to stop the spread of fake news. Wardle is adamant that tweaking
algorithms is not like censorship.

"I'm talking about a bit like a spam folder in your email, those emails still sit there, but
you have to go to your spam folder to look for it," she says.
But human language and news stories are complicated in ways that computers have
difficulty dealing with, and any automated method of fact checking risks reflecting the
biases of the programmers who created it.

"There are some very smart people looking at automated solutions now, around
automated fact checking, which can get up to about 80% accurate," Wardle says. "I
would argue we are always going to need human eyes at the very end to say 'hang on,
have we got entirely duped' we want a combination of algorithms and human
experience."

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