Fake news

This article is about the type of hoax. For the websites that specialize in it, see Fake news website. For other uses, see Fake news (disambiguation).

Reporters with various forms of "fake news" from an 1894 illustration by Frederick Burr Opper

Fake news could be said to have two meanings. As used by Donald Trump, his campaign and his administration it is a statement of dislike for particular news, either in its content or aspects omitted. It's unclear whether this use is common enough to be considered an actual definition rather than just the origin of the popularity of the term.

The more commonly accepted meaning of fake news has been adopted from his campaign and administration's claim for how they use the term, to describe news that is written and published with the intent to mislead in order to damage an agency, entity, or person, and/or gain financially or politically, often using sensationalist, dishonest, or outright fabricated headlines to increase readership, online sharing, and Internet click revenue. In the latter case, it is similar to sensational online "clickbait" headlines and relies on advertising revenue generated from this activity, regardless of the veracity of the published stories. Intentionally misleading and deceptive fake news is different from obvious satire or parody, which is intended to humor rather than mislead its audience.

The relevance of fake news has increased in post-truth politics. With the expansion of technology, the need for views and ratings has been increasingly higher. For media outlets, the ability to attract viewers to their websites is a necessity in order to please advertisers that pay for advertising on their websites. If publishing a story with false content will produce a big caption and attract viewers, it may be worthy producing in order to benefit advertisers and ratings. Easy access to online advertisement revenue, increased political polarization, and the popularity of social media, primarily the Facebook News Feed, have all been implicated in the spread of fake news, which have come to provide competition for legitimate news stories. Hostile government actors have also been implicated in generating and propagating fake news, particularly during elections.

Fake news also undermines serious media coverage and makes it more difficult for journalists to cover significant news stories. An analysis by Buzzfeed found that the top 20 fake news stories about the 2016 U.S. presidential election received more engagement on Facebook than the top 20 news stories on the election from 19 major media outlets. Anonymously-hosted fake news websites lacking known publishers have also been credited, because they make it difficult to prosecute sources of fake news for libel.

Definition

Fake news is a neologism often used to refer to fabricated news. This type of news, found in traditional news, social media or fake news websites, has no basis in fact, but is presented as being factually accurate. Michael Radutzky, a producer of CBS 60 Minutes, said his show considers fake news to be "stories that are provably false, have enormous traction [popular appeal] in the culture, and are consumed by millions of people". He did not include fake news that is "invoked by politicians against the media for stories that they don't like or for comments that they don't like". Guy Campanile, also a 60 Minutes producer said, "What we are talking about are stories that are fabricated out of thin air. By most measures, deliberately, and by any definition, that's a lie." The intention and purpose behind fake news is important. In some cases, what appears to be fake news may in fact be news satire, which uses exaggeration and introduces non-factual elements, and is intended to amuse or make a point, rather than to deceive. Propaganda can also be fake news.

Claire Wardle of First Draft News identifies seven types of fake news:

1. satire or parody ("no intention to cause harm but has potential to fool")
2. false connection ("when headlines, visuals or captions don't support the content")
3. misleading content ("misleading use of information to frame an issue or an individual")
4. false content ("when genuine content is shared with false contextual information")
5. imposter content ("when genuine sources are impersonated" with false, made-up sources)
6. manipulated content ("when genuine information or imagery is manipulated to deceive", as with a "doctored" photo)
7. fabricated content ("new content is 100% false, designed to deceive and do harm")

In the context of the United States of America and its election processes in the 2010s, fake news generated considerable controversy and argument, with some commentators defining concern over it as moral panic or mass hysteria and others worried about damage done to public trust. In January 2017 the United Kingdom House of Commons conducted a parliamentary inquiry into the "growing phenomenon of fake news".

Identifying

Infographic How to spot fake news published by the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions

The International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA) published a summary in diagram form (pictured at right) to assist people in recognizing fake news. These points have been corroborated by experts in the cognitive science of information processing. Its main points are:

1. Consider the source (to understand its mission and purpose)
2. Read beyond the headline (to understand the whole story)
3. Check the authors (to see if they are real and credible)
4. Assess the supporting sources (to ensure they support the claims)
5. Check the date of publication (to see if the story is relevant and up to date)
6. Ask if it is a joke (to determine if it is meant to be satire)
7. Review your own biases (to see if they are affecting your judgement)
8. Ask experts (to get confirmation from independent people with knowledge).

The International Fact-Checking Network (IFCN), launched in 2015, supports international collaborative efforts in fact-checking, provides training and has published a code of principles. In 2017 it introduced an application and vetting process for journalistic organisations. One of IFCN's verified signatories, the independent, not-for-profit media journal The Conversation, created a short animation explaining its fact checking process, which involves "extra checks and balances, including blind peer review by a second academic expert, additional scrutiny and editorial oversight".

Beginning in the 2017 school year, children in Taiwan study a new curriculum designed to teach critical reading of propaganda and the evaluation of sources. Called "media literacy", the course provides training in journalism in the new information society.

Historical examples

Ancient

Roman politician and general Mark Antony killed himself because of misinformation.

In the 13th century BC, Rameses the Great spread lies and propaganda portraying the Battle of Kadesh as a stunning victory for the Egyptians; he depicted scenes of him smiting his foes during the battle on the walls of nearly all his temples. The treaty between the Egyptians and the Hittites, however, reveals that the battle was actually a stalemate.

During the first century BC, Octavian ran a campaign of misinformation against his rival Mark Antony, portraying him as a drunkard, a womanizer, and a mere puppet of the Egyptian queen Cleopatra VII. He published a document purporting to be Marc Antony's will, which claimed that Marc Antony, upon his death, wished to be entombed in the mausoleum of the Ptolemaic pharaohs. Although the document may have been forged, it invoked outrage from the Roman populace. Marc Antony ultimately killed himself after his defeat in the Battle of Actium upon hearing false rumors propagated by Cleopatra herself claiming that she had committed suicide.

During the second and third centuries AD, false rumors were spread about Christians claiming that they engaged in ritual cannibalism and incest. In the late third century AD, the Christian apologist Lactantius invented and exaggerated stories about pagans engaging in acts of immorality and cruelty, while the anti-Christian writer Porphyry invented similar stories about Christians.

Medieval

In 1475, a fake news story in Trent claimed that the Jewish community had murdered a two-and-a-half-year-old Christian infant named Simonino. The story resulted in all the Jews in the city being arrested and tortured; fifteen of them were burned at the stake. Pope Sixtus IV himself attempted to stamp out the story, but, by that point, it had already spread beyond anyone's control. Stories of this kind were known as "blood libel"; they claimed that Jews purposely killed Christians, especially Christian children, and used their blood for religious or ritual purposes.

Early modern period

After the invention of the printing press in 1439, publications became widespread but there was no standard of journalistic ethics to follow. By the 17th century, historians began the practice of citing their sources in footnotes. In 1610 when Galileo went on trial, the demand for verifiable news increased.

During the 18th century publishers of fake news were fined and banned in the Netherlands; one man, Gerard Lodewijk van der Macht, was banned four times by Dutch authorities—and four times he moved and restarted his press. In the American colonies, Benjamin Franklin wrote fake news about murderous "scalping" Indians working with King George III in an effort to sway public opinion in favor of the American Revolution.

Canards, the successors of the 16th century pasquinade, were sold in Paris on the street for two centuries, starting in the 17th century. In 1793, Marie Antoinette was executed in part because of popular hatred engendered by a canard on which her face had been printed.

During the era of slave-owning in the United States, supporters of slavery propagated fake news stories about African Americans, whom white people considered to have lower status. Violence occurred in reaction to the spread of some fake news events. In one instance, stories of African Americans spontaneously turning white spread through the south and struck fear into the hearts of many people.

Rumors and anxieties about slave rebellions were common in Virginia from the beginning of the colonial period, despite the only major uprising occurring in the 19th century. One particular instance of fake news regarding revolts occurred in 1730. The serving governor of Virginia at the time, Governor William Gooch, reported that a slave rebellion had occurred but was effectively put down – although this never happened. After Gooch discovered the falsehood, he ordered slaves found off plantations to be punished, tortured, and made prisoners.

19th century

A "lunar animal" said to have been discovered by John Herschel on the Moon

One instance of fake news was the Great Moon Hoax of 1835. The New York Sun published articles about a real-life astronomer and a made-up colleague who, according to the hoax, had observed bizarre life on the moon. The fictionalized articles successfully attracted new subscribers, and the penny paper suffered very little backlash after it admitted the next month that the series had been a hoax. Such stories were intended to entertain readers, and not to mislead them.

In the late 19th century, Joseph Pulitzer and other yellow journalism publishers goaded the United States into the Spanish–American War, which was precipitated when the U.S.S. Maine exploded in the harbor of Havana, Cuba.

Joseph Pulitzer and William Randolph Hearst caricatured as they urged the U.S. into the Spanish–American War.

20th century

During the First World War, an example of anti-German atrocity propaganda was that of an alleged "German Corpse Factory" in which the German battlefield dead were rendered down for fats used to make nitroglycerine, candles, lubricants, human soap, and boot dubbing. Unfounded rumors regarding such a factory circulated in the Allied press starting in 1915, and by 1917 the English-language publication North China Daily News presented these allegations as true at a time when Britain was trying to convince China to join the Allied war effort; this was based on new, allegedly true stories from The Times and The Daily Mail that turned out to be forgeries. These false allegations became known as such after the war, and in the Second World War Joseph Goebbels used the story in order to deny the ongoing massacre of Jews as British propaganda. According to Joachim Neander and Randal Marlin, the story also "encouraged later disbelief" when reports about the Holocaust surfaced after the liberation of Auschwitz and Dachau concentration camps. After Hitler and the Nazi Party rose to power in Germany in 1933, they established the Reich Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda under the control of Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels. The Nazis used both print and broadcast journalism to promote their agendas, either by obtaining ownership of those media or exerting political influence. Throughout World War II, both the Axis and the Allies employed fake news in the form of propaganda to persuade publics at home and in enemy countries. The British Political Warfare Executive used radio broadcasts and distributed leaflets to discourage German troops.

The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace has published that The New York Times printed fake news "depicting Russia as a socialist paradise." During 1932–1933, The New York Times published numerous articles by its Moscow bureau chief, Walter Duranty, who won a Pulitzer prize for a series of reports about the Soviet Union.

21st century

In the 21st century, the impact of fake news became widespread, as well as the usage of the term. Besides referring to made-up stories designed to deceive readers into clicking on links, maximizing traffic and profit, the term has also referred to satirical news, whose purpose is not to mislead but rather to inform viewers and share humorous commentary about real news and the mainstream media. United States examples of satire (as opposed to fake news) include the television show Saturday Night Live's Weekend Update, The Daily Show, The Colbert Report, The Late Show with Stephen Colbert and The Onion newspaper.

21st century fake news is often intended to increase the financial profits of the news outlet. In an interview with NPR, Jestin Coler, former CEO of the fake media conglomerate Disinfomedia, said who writes fake news articles, who funds these articles, and why fake news creators create and distribute false information. Coler, who has since left his role as a fake news creator, said that his company employed 20 to 25 writers at a time and made $10,000 to $30,000 monthly from advertisements. Coler began his career in journalism as a magazine salesman before working as a freelance writer. He said he entered the fake news industry to prove to himself and others just how rapidly fake news can spread. Disinfomedia is not the only outlet responsible for the distribution of fake news; Facebook users play a major role in feeding into fake news stories by making sensationalized stories "trend", according to BuzzFeed media editor Craig Silverman, and the individuals behind Google AdSense basically fund fake news websites and their content. Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Facebook, said, "I think the idea that fake news on Facebook influenced the election in any way, I think is a pretty crazy idea", and then a few days later he blogged that Facebook was looking for ways to flag fake news stories.

Many online pro-Trump fake news stories are being sourced out of a small city in Macedonia, where approximately seven different fake news organizations are employing hundreds of teenagers to rapidly produce and plagiarize sensationalist stories for different U.S. based companies and parties.

One fake news writer, Paul Horner, was behind the widespread hoax that he was the graffiti artist Banksy and had been arrested; that a man stopped a robbery in a diner by quoting Pulp Fiction; and that he had an "enormous impact" on the 2016 U.S. presidential election, according to CBS News. These stories consistently appeared in Google's top news search results, were shared widely on Facebook, were taken seriously, and shared by third parties such as Trump presidential campaign manager Corey Lewandowski, Eric Trump, ABC News, and the Fox News Channel. Horner later claimed that his work during this period was intended "to make Trump's supporters look like idiots for sharing my stories".

In a November 2016 interview with The Washington Post, Horner expressed regret for the role his fake news stories played in the election and surprise at how gullible people were in treating his stories as news. In February 2017 Horner said, "I truly regret my comment about saying that I think Donald Trump is in the White House because of me. I know all I did was attack him and his supporters and got people not to vote for him. When I said that comment it was because I was confused how this evil got elected President and I thought maybe instead of hurting his campaign, maybe I had helped it. My intention was to get his supporters NOT to vote for him and I know for a fact that I accomplished that goal. The far right, a lot of the Bible thumpers and alt-right were going to vote him regardless, but I know I swayed so many that were on the fence."

In December 2016, while speaking on Anderson Cooper 360, Horner said that all news is fake news and said CNN "spread misinformation", which was one month before Donald Trump leveled the same criticism at that network.

Horner spoke at the European Parliament in March, speaking about fake news and the importance of fact checking. According to a 2017 BuzzFeed article, Horner stated that a story of his about a rape festival in India helped generate over $250,000 in donations to GiveIndia, a site that helps rape victims in India. Horner said he dislikes being grouped with people who write fake news solely to be misleading. "They just write it just to write fake news, like there's no purpose, there's no satire, there's nothing clever. All the stories I wrote were to make Trump's supporters look like idiots for sharing my stories." The Huffington Post called Horner a "Performance Artist". Horner has been referred to as a "hoax artist" by outlets such as the Associated Press and the Chicago Tribune.

Kim LaCapria of the fact checking website Snopes.com has stated that, in America, fake news is a bipartisan phenomenon, saying that "[t]here has always been a sincerely held yet erroneous belief misinformation is more red than blue in America, and that has never been true." Jeff Green of Trade Desk agrees the phenomenon affects both sides. Green's company found that affluent and well-educated persons in their 40s and 50s are the primary consumers of fake news. He told Scott Pelley of 60 Minutes that this audience tends to live in an "echo chamber" and that these are the people who vote.

In 2014, the Russian Government used disinformation via networks such as RT to create a counter-narrative after Russian-backed Ukrainian rebels shot down Malaysia Airlines Flight 17. In 2016, NATO claimed it had seen a significant rise in Russian propaganda and fake news stories since the invasion of Crimea in 2014. Fake news stories originated from the Russian government officials were also circulated internationally by Reuters news agency and published in the most popular news websites in the United States.

In mainstream media

Orson Welles explaining to reporters about his radio drama "War of the Worlds" on Sunday, October 30, 1938, the day after the broadcast

"The War of the Worlds" is an episode of the American radio drama anthology series The Mercury Theatre on the Air. Directed and narrated by actor and filmmaker Orson Welles, the episode was an adaptation of H. G. Wells' novel The War of the Worlds (1898), presented as a series of simulated news bulletins. Although preceded by a clear introduction that the show was a drama, it became famous for allegedly causing mass panic, although the reality of the panic is disputed as the program had relatively few listeners. An investigation was run by The Federal Communications Commission to examine the mass hysteria produced by this radio programming; no law was found broken. This event was an example the early stages of society's dependency on information from print to radio and other mediums. Fake news can even be found within this example, the true extent of the "hysteria" from the radio broadcast has also been falsely recorded. The most extreme case and reaction after the radio broadcast was a group of Grover Mill locals attacking a water tower because they falsely identified it as an alien.

President Trump's frequent claims that the mainstream American media regularly reports fake news has increased distrust of the American media globally, particularly in Russia. His claims have given credibility to the stories in the Russian media that label American news, especially news about atrocities committed by the Syrian regime against its own people where it was quoted that "munitions at the air base had as much to do with chemical weapons as the test tube in the hands of Colin Powell had to do with weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.”, as just more fake American news.

According to Jeff Hemsley, a Syracuse University professor who studies social media, Trump uses this term for any news that is not favorable to him or which he simply dislikes. Because of the manner in which he has co-opted the term, Washington Post media columnist Margaret Sullivan has warned fellow journalists that "It's time to retire the tainted term 'fake news'. Though the term hasn't been around long, its meaning already is lost."

Another issue in mainstream media is the usage of the filter bubble, a "bubble" that has been created that gives the viewer, on social media platforms, a specific piece of the information knowing they will like it. Thus creating fake news and biased news because only half the story is being shared, the portion the viewer liked. "In 1996, Nicolas Negroponte predicted a world where information technologies become increasingly customizable." Decades ago people predicted that customized news would become a reality. This becomes a problem in today's society because people are seeing only bits and pieces and not the whole issues making it much harder to solve the issues or talk about it worldwide.

On the internet

Main article: Fake news website

See also: Internet manipulation

In websites

The impact of fake news has become a worldwide phenomenon. Fake news is often spread through the use of fake news websites, which, in order to gain credibility, specialize in creating attention-grabbing news, which often impersonate well-known news sources. Jestin Coler, who said he does it for "fun", also said he earned US$10,000 per month from advertising on his fake news websites. In 2017, the inventor of the World Wide Web, Tim Berners-Lee claimed that fake news was one of the three most significant new disturbing Internet trends that must first be resolved, if the Internet is to be capable of truly "serving humanity." The other two new disturbing trends that Berners-Lee described as threatening the Internet were the recent surge in the use of the Internet by governments for both citizen-surveillance purposes, and for cyber-warfare purposes.

Intentionally deceptive photoshopped image of Hillary Clinton over 1977 photo of Peoples Temple Reverend Jim Jones.

Bots on social media

In the mid 1990s, Nicolas Negroponte anticipated a world where news through technology become progressively personalized. In his 1996 book Being Digital he predicted a digital life where news consumption becomes an extremely personalized experience and newspapers adapted content to reader preferences. This prediction has since been reflected in news and social media feeds of modern day.

In the 21st century, the capacity to mislead was enhanced by the widespread use of social media. For example, one 21st century website that enabled fake news' proliferation was the Facebook newsfeed. In late 2016 fake news gained notoriety following the uptick in news content by this means, and its prevalence on the micro-blogging site Twitter. In the United States, 62% of Americans use social media to receive news. This, in combination with increased political polarization and filter bubbles, led to a tendency for readers to mainly read headlines.

Numerous individuals and news outlets have stated that fake news may have influenced the outcome of the 2016 American Presidential Election. Fake news saw higher sharing on Facebook than legitimate news stories, which analysts explained was because fake news often panders to expectations or is otherwise more exciting than legitimate news. Facebook itself initially denied this characterization. A Pew Research poll conducted in December 2016 found that 64% of U.S. adults believed completely made-up news had caused "a great deal of confusion" about the basic facts of current events, while 24% claimed it had caused "some confusion" and 11% said it had caused "not much or no confusion". Additionally, 23% of those polled admitted they had personally shared fake news, whether knowingly or not. Researchers from Stanford assessed that only 8% of readers of fake news recalled and believed in the content they were reading, though the same share of readers also recalled and believed in "placebos" – stories they did not actually read, but that were produced by the authors of the study. In comparison, over 50% of the participants recalled reading and believed in true news stories.

By August 2017 Facebook stopped using the term "fake news" and used "false news" in its place instead. Will Oremus of Slate wrote that because supporters of U.S. President Donald Trump had redefined the word "fake news" to refer to mainstream media opposed to them, "it makes sense for Facebook—and others—to cede the term to the right-wing trolls who have claimed it as their own."

Research from Northwestern University concluded that 30% of all fake news traffic, as opposed to only 8% of real news traffic, could be linked back to Facebook. Fake news consumers, they concluded, do not exist in a filter bubble; many of them also consume real news from established news sources. The fake news audience is only 10 percent of the real news audience, and most fake news consumers spent a relatively similar amount of time on fake news compared with real news consumers—with the exception of Drudge Report readers, who spent more than 11 times longer reading the website than other users.

In China, fake news items have occasionally spread from such sites to more well-established news-sites resulting in scandals including "Pizzagate". In the wake of western events, China's Ren Xianling of the Cyberspace Administration of China suggested a "reward and punish" system be implemented to avoid fake news.

Internet trolls

In Internet slang, a troll is a person who sows discord on the Internet by starting arguments or upsetting people, by posting inflammatory, extraneous, or off-topic messages in an online community (such as a newsgroup, forum, chat room, or blog) with the intent of provoking readers into an emotional response or off-topic discussion, often for the troll's amusement. When interacting with each other, trolls often share misleading information that contributes to the fake news circulated on sites like Twitter and Facebook. In the 2016 American election, Russia paid over 1,000 internet trolls to circulate fake news and information about Hillary Clinton.

Response

During the 2016 United States presidential election, the creation and coverage of fake news increased substantially. This resulted in a widespread response to combat the spread of fake news. The volume and reluctance of fake news websites to respond to fact-checking organizations has posed a problem to inhibiting the spread of fake news through fact checking alone. In an effort to reduce the effects of fake news, fact-checking websites, including Snopes.com and FactCheck.org, have posted guides to spotting and avoiding fake news websites. New critical readings of media events and news with an emphasis on literalism and logic have also emerged. Social media sites and search engines, such as Facebook and Google, received criticism for facilitating the spread of fake news. Both of these corporations have taken measures to explicitly prevent the spread of fake news; critics, however, believe more action is needed.

After the 2016 American election and the run-up to the German election, Facebook began labeling and warning of inaccurate news and partnered with independent fact-checkers to label inaccurate news, warning readers before sharing it. After a story is flagged as disputed, it will be reviewed by the third-party fact-checkers. Then, if it has been proven to be a fake news story, the post cannot be turned into an ad or promoted. Artificial intelligence is one of the more recent technologies being developed in the United States and Europe to recognize and eliminate fake news through algorithms. In 2017, Facebook targeted 30,000 accounts related to the spread of misinformation regarding the French presidential election.

Fake news by country

Australia

A well-known case of fabricated news in Australia happened in 2009 when a report Deception Detection Across Australian Populations of a "Levitt Institute" was widely cited on the news websites all over the country, claiming that Sydney was the most naive city, despite the fact that the report itself contained a cue: amidst the mathematical gibberish, there was a statement: "These results were completely made up to be fictitious material through a process of modified truth and credibility nodes." The Australian Parliament initiated investigation into "fake news" regarding issues surrounding fake news that occurred during the 2016 United States election. The inquiry looks at a few major areas in Australia to find audiences most vulnerable to fake news, by considering the impact on traditional journalism, and by evaluating the liability of online advertisers and by regulating the spreading the hoaxes. This act of parliament is meant to combat the threat of social media power on spreading fakes news as concluded negative results to the public.

Austria

Politicians in Austria dealt with the impact of fake news and its spread on social media after the 2016 presidential campaign in the country. In December 2016, a court in Austria issued an injunction on Facebook Europe, mandating it block negative postings related to Eva Glawischnig-Piesczek, Austrian Green Party Chairwoman. According to The Washington Post the postings to Facebook about her "appeared to have been spread via a fake profile" and directed derogatory epithets towards the Austrian politician. The derogatory postings were likely created by the identical fake profile that had previously been utilized to attack Alexander van der Bellen, who won the election for President of Austria.

Brazil

Brazil faced increasing influence from fake news after the 2014 re-election of President Dilma Rousseff and Rousseff's subsequent impeachment in August 2016. BBC Brazil reported in April 2016 that in the week surrounding one of the impeachment votes, three out of the five most-shared articles on Facebook in Brazil were fake. In 2015, reporter Tai Nalon resigned from her position at Brazilian newspaper Folha de S Paulo in order to start the first fact-checking website in Brazil, called Aos Fatos (To The Facts). Nalon told The Guardian there was a great deal of fake news, and hesitated to compare the problem to that experienced in the U.S.

Canada

Fake news online was brought to the attention of Canadian politicians in November 2016, as they debated helping assist local newspapers. Member of Parliament for Vancouver Centre Hedy Fry specifically discussed fake news as an example of ways in which publishers on the Internet are less accountable than print media. Discussion in parliament contrasted increase of fake news online with downsizing of Canadian newspapers and the impact for democracy in Canada. Representatives from Facebook Canada attended the meeting and told members of Parliament they felt it was their duty to assist individuals gather data online.

In January 2017, the Conservative leadership campaign of Kellie Leitch admitted to spreading fake news, including false claims that Justin Trudeau was financing Hamas. The campaign manager claimed he spread the news in order to provoke negative reactions so that he could determine those who "aren't real Conservatives".

Czech Republic

See also: Centre Against Terrorism and Hybrid Threats

Czech Republic has become home to numerous fake news outlets, many redistributing news in Czech and English originally produced by Russian sources. Czech president Miloš Zeman has been actively demonstrating his pro-Russian views and supporting media outlets accused of spreading fake news, such as Russia Today.

The Centre Against Terrorism and Hybrid Threats (CTHH) is unit of the Ministry of the Interior of the Czech Republic primarily aimed at countering disinformation, fake news, hoaxes and foreign propaganda. The CTHH started operations on January 1, 2017. The CTHH has been criticized by Czech President Miloš Zeman, who said: "We don't need censorship. We don't need thought police. We don't need a new agency for press and information as long as we want to live in a free and democratic society."

In 2017 media activists started a website Konspiratori.cz maintaining a list of conspiracy and fake news outlets in Czech.

China

See also: Internet censorship in China

Fake news during the 2016 U.S. election spread to China. Articles popularized within the United States were translated into Chinese and spread within China. The government of China used the growing problem of fake news as a rationale for increasing Internet censorship in China in November 2016. China took the opportunity to publish an editorial in its Communist Party newspaper The Global Times called: "Western Media's Crusade Against Facebook", and criticized "unpredictable" political problems posed by freedoms enjoyed by users of Twitter, Google, and Facebook. China government leaders meeting in Wuzhen at the third World Internet Conference in November 2016 said fake news in the U.S. election justified adding more curbs to free and open use of the Internet. China Deputy Minister Ren Xianliang, official at the Cyberspace Administration of China, said increasing online participation led to "harmful information" and fraud. Kam Chow Wong, a former Hong Kong law enforcement official and criminal justice professor at Xavier University, praised attempts in the U.S. to patrol social media.The Wall Street Journal noted China's themes of Internet censorship became more relevant at the World Internet Conference due to the outgrowth of fake news.

The issue of fake news in the 2016 United States election has given the Chinese Government a reason to further criticize Western democracy and press freedom. The Chinese government has also accused Western media organisations of bias, in a move apparently inspired by President Trump.

In March 2017, China used the phrase "Fake News" in the flagship newspaper, People's Daily, run by the ruling communist party and emphasized President Donald Trump's well known phrase as they denounced western news coverage of a Chinese lawyer and human rights advocate who had said they had been tortured by the police. A tweet by Peoples Daily reads "Foreign Media reports that police tortured a detained lawyer is FAKE NEWS, fabricated to tarnish china's image". "The stories were essentially fake news", Xinhua wrote, the state run news agency. The Chinese government is known for its long history of denouncing most western news organizations.

Another internal issue of fake news in China is associated with the power of internet and social media. According to the Chinese government, there is a practice where people who present themselves as Chinese journalists spread fake information about Chinese organisations, politicians, and celebrities until they are paid by the affected parties to stop the action. These people use online social media to spread fake news in order to achieve their goals. According to David Bandurski, University of Hong Kong's China Media Projector, this problem is growing and worsening.

Finland

Officials from 11 countries held a meeting in Helsinki in November 2016, in order to plan the formation of a center to combat disinformation cyber-warfare including spread of fake news on social media. The center is planned to be located in Helsinki and include efforts from 10 countries with participation from Sweden, Germany, Finland, and the U.S. Prime Minister of Finland Juha Sipilä planned to deal with the center in spring 2017 with a motion before the Parliament of Finland. Jori Arvonen, Deputy Secretary of State for EU Affairs, said cyberwarfare became an increased problem in 2016, and included hybrid cyber-warfare intrusions into Finland from Russia and Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant. Arvonen cited examples including fake news online, disinformation, and the little green men troops during the Ukrainian crisis.

France

During the 10-year period preceding 2016, France was witness to an increase in popularity of far-right alternative news sources called the fachosphere ("facho" referring to fascist); known as the extreme right on the Internet. According to sociologist Antoine Bevort, citing data from Alexa Internet rankings, the most consulted political websites in France in 2016 included Égalité et Réconciliation, François Desouche, and Les Moutons Enragés. These sites increased skepticism towards mainstream media from both left and right perspectives.

In September 2016, the country faced controversy regarding fake websites providing false information about abortion. The National Assembly moved forward with intentions to ban such fake sites. Laurence Rossignol, women's minister for France, informed parliament though the fake sites look neutral, in actuality their intentions were specifically targeted to give women fake information.

France saw an uptick in amounts of disinformation and propaganda, primarily in the midst of election cycles. Social media outlets in France were overflowing with fake news prior to the 2017 presidential election. A study looking at the diffusion of political news during the 2017 presidential election cycle suggests that one in four links shared in social media comes from sources that actively contest traditional media narratives. According to The Independent, Facebook corporate deleted 30,000 Facebook accounts in France associated with fake political information.

Macron’s presidential campaign was attacked by the fake news articles much more than the campaigns of more conservative candidates like Marine Le Pen. Many sources believe the fake information was coming from Russia, similar to what happened in the recent US presidential election. One of the fake articles announced that Marine Le Pen won the presidency before the people of France had even voted. Clinton Watts, at the George Washington University Center for Cyber and Homeland Security believes that these fake political articles will play a significant role in the upcoming German election.

In April 2017, Russian actors were accused by technology companies Trend Micro and Flashpoint of leaking presidential candidate Emmanuel Macron's private emails and other documents on a file sharing website. The leaked documents were mixed with fake ones in social media in an attempt to sway the upcoming presidential election. The documents were said to include various professional and private emails, as well as memos, contracts and accounting documents. Director of research with IS-based cyber intelligence firm Flashpoint, Vitali Kremez, said his analysis indicated that APT28, a group tied to Russias GRU military intelligence directorate, was behind the leak. However, the head of the French cyber-security agency, ANSSI, later said that there was no evidence that the hack leading to the leaks had anything to do with Russia, saying that the attack was so simple, that "we can imagine that it was a person who did this alone. They could be in any country."

The newly elected President Macron of France, wants to combat the spread of fake news while he is in office.

Germany

German Chancellor Angela Merkel lamented the problem of fraudulent news reports in a November 2016 speech, days after announcing her campaign for a fourth term as leader of her country. In a speech to the German parliament, Merkel was critical of such fake sites, saying they harmed political discussion. Merkel called attention to the need of government to deal with Internet trolls, bots, and fake news websites. She warned that such fraudulent news websites were a force increasing the power of populist extremism. Merkel called fraudulent news a growing phenomenon that might need to be regulated in the future. Germany's foreign intelligence agency Federal Intelligence Service Chief, Bruno Kahl (de), warned of the potential for cyberattacks by Russia in the 2017 German election. He said the cyberattacks would take the form of the intentional spread of disinformation. Kahl said the goal is to increase chaos in political debates. Germany's domestic intelligence agency Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution Chief, Hans-Georg Maassen, said sabotage by Russian intelligence was a present threat to German information security.

India

Fake news in India has led to episodes of violence between castes and religions and interfered with public policies. It often spreads through the smartphone instant messenger Whatsapp, which had 200 million monthly active users in the country as of February 2017.

On November 8, 2016, India established a 2,000-rupee currency bill on the same day as the Indian 500 and 1,000 rupee note demonetisation. Fake news went viral over Whatsapp that the note came equipped with spying technology that tracked bills 120 meters below the earth. Finance Minister Arun Jaitley refuted the falsities, but not before they had spread to the country's mainstream news outlets. Later, in May 2017, seven people were lynched as rumor of child abductions spread through WhatsApp in a village.

Prabhakar Kumar of the Indian media research agency CMS, told The Guardian India was harder hit by fake news because the country lacked media policy for verification. Law enforcement officers in India arrested individuals with charges of creating fictitious articles, predominantly if there was likelihood the articles inflamed societal conflict. BBC Monitoring cited Pakistan Today, which noted an apt example of post-truth politics, a statement by politician and broadcaster Aamir Liaquat about the Kargil War between India and Pakistan. Liaquat defended the Pakistan Armed Forces actions in a doublethink statement akin to: "we didn't invade Kargil and we taught the Indians a lesson when we invaded Kargil". BBC Monitoring used this example to observe fake news reporting was prominent in the Middle East.

In July 2017, News18 India published a photograph of a flag alleged to be the Pakistani flag being raised over Uttar Pradesh. The story caused widespread outrage in India, but the flag in question was revealed to actually be a green Islamic flag, not the Pakistani flag.

Indonesia

Recently, Indonesia has seen an increase in the amount of fake news circulating social media. The problem first arose during their 2014 presidential election, where candidate Jokowi became a target of a smear campaign which falsely claimed he was the child of Indonesian Communist Party members, of Chinese descent, and a Christian. Unlike the 2016 U.S. presidential election, where the sharing of fake news resulted in increased social-media engagement than real news, inflaming ethnic and political tensions could be potentially deadly in Indonesia, with its recent incidences of domestic terrorism, and its long and bloody history of anticommunist, anti-Christian and anti-Chinese pogroms. The government, watchdog groups, and even religious organizations have taken steps to prevent its spreading, such as blocking certain websites and creating fact-check apps. The largest Islamic mass organization in Indonesia, Nahdlatul Ulama, has created an anti-fake news campaign called #TurnBackHoax, while other Islamic groups have defined such propagation as tantamount to a sin. While the government currently views criminal punishment as its last resort, officials are working hard to guarantee law enforcement will respect the freedom of expression.

Israel/Palestine

Fake news about Israel has been published by the Palestinian Authority and news agencies.. The Second Intifada, for example, was sparked by the exaggerated account of retired politician Ariel Sharon to the Temple mount in 2001.People had been killed in the Western Wall Tunnel riots in reaction to fake news accounts, and one Egyptian newspaper reported on when Israeli spy sharks trained to eat Arab bathers, an example of a Israel-related animal conspiracy theories, in the Red Sea. The Israeli state has been accused of spreading propaganda in the USA.

The Palestinian Islamist political organization, Hamas published a political program in 2017 intended to ease its position on Israel. Among other things, this charter accepted the borders of the Palestinian state circa the Six-Day War of 1967. Although this document is an advancement from their previous 1988 charter, which called for the destruction of the State of ‘’’Israel’’’, it still does not recognize Israel as legitimate independent nation. In a video, Prime Minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu responded to the coverage of this event by news outlets such as Al Jazeera, CNN, New York Times and The Guardian, calling their reporting fake news. He specifically disagreed with the notion that Hamas had accepted the state of Israel within their new charter, and called this "a complete distortion of the truth.” Instead he said, “The new Hamas document says Israel has no right to exist.” In a later speech, addressed to his supporters, Netanyahu responded to allegations against him: “The fake news industry is at its peak… Look, for example, how they cover with unlimited enthusiasm, every week, the left-wing demonstration. The same demonstrations whose goal is to apply improper pressure on law enforcement authorities so they will file an indictment at any price.” Observers likened his blanketed use of the term, ‘fake news’, for describing left-wing media to Donald Trump, and his similar statements during the 2016 election cycle.

Italy

President of the Italian Chamber of Deputies, Laura Boldrini, stated: "Fake news is a critical issue and we can’t ignore it. We have to act now."

Between October 1 and November 30, 2016, ahead of the Italian constitutional referendum, five out of ten referendum-related stories with most social media participation were hoaxes or inaccurate. Of the three stories with the most social media attention, two were fake. Prime Minister of Italy Matteo Renzi met with U.S. President Obama and leaders of Europe at a meeting in Berlin, Germany in November 2016, and spoke about the fake news problem. Renzi hosted discussions on Facebook Live in an effort to rebut falsities online. The influence became so heavy that a senior adviser to Renzi began a defamation complaint on an anonymous Twitter user who had used the screenname "Beatrice di Maio", the wife of a former minister.

The Five Star Movement (M5S), an Italian political party founded by Beppe Grillo, managed fake news sites amplifying support for Russian news, propaganda, and inflamed conspiracy theories. The party's site TzeTze had 1.2 million Facebook fans and shared fake news and pieces supportive of Putin cited to Russia-owned sources including Sputnik News. TzeTze plagiarized the Russian sources, and copied article titles and content from Sputnik. TzeTze, another site critical of Renzi called La Cosa, and a blog by Grillo – were managed by the company Casaleggio Associati, which was started by Five Star Movement co-founder Gianroberto Casaleggio. Casaleggio's son Davide Casaleggio owns and manages TzeTze and La Cosa, and medical advice website La Fucina, which markets anti-vaccine conspiracy theories and medical cure-all methods. Grillo's blog, Five Star Movement fake sites use the same IP addresses, Google Analytics and Google Adsense. The 5 Star Movement has rejected the accusations saying: "The investigation of Buzzfeed is a fake news" and "The accuse of making propaganda pro Kremlin or to spread fake news are ridiculous."

Myanmar

See also: Persecution of Muslims in Myanmar

In 2015, BBC News reported on fake stories, using unrelated photographs and fraudulent captions, shared online in support of the Rohingya. Fake news negatively affected individuals in Myanmar, leading to a rise in violence against Muslims in the country. Online participation surged from one percent to 20 percent of Myanmar's total populace from 2014 to 2016. Fake stories from Facebook were reprinted in paper periodicals called Facebook and The Internet. False reporting related to practitioners of Islam in the country was directly correlated with increased attacks on Muslims in Myanmar. BuzzFeed journalist Sheera Frenkel reported fake news fictitiously stated believers in Islam acted out in violence at Buddhist locations. She documented a direct relationship between the fake news and violence against Muslim people. Frenkel noted countries that were relatively newer to Internet exposure were more vulnerable to the problems of fake news and fraud.

Pakistan

Khawaja Muhammad Asif, the Minister of Defence of Pakistan, threatened to nuke Israel on Twitter after a false story claiming that Avigdor Lieberman, the Israeli Ministry of Defense, said "If Pakistan send ground troops into Syria on any pretext, we will destroy this country with a nuclear attack."

Philippines

Fake news has been problematic in the Philippines where social media has outsized political influence. Following the 2016 Philippine election, Senator Francis Pangilinan filed that there be an inquiry of conduct of social media platforms that allowed for the spreading of fake news. Pangilinan called for penalties for social media platforms that provided the public with false information about his ideas. The news that came out was meant to discredit the opposing party and used social media as an outlet to bring propaganda into the mainstream media. According to media analysts, developing countries such as the Philippines, with the generally new access to social media and democracy, feel the problem of fake news to a larger extent. Facebook is one of the largest platforms being an open website, that works as a booster to sway the opinion of the public due to manufactured stories. While Facebook provides free media sources, it does not provide its users with the access to fact checking websites. Because of this, government authorities call for a tool that will filter out "fake news" to secure the integrity of cyberspace in the Philippines. Rappler, a social news network in the Philippines, investigated online networks of Duterte supporters and discovered that they include fake news, fake accounts, bots and trolls, which Rappler thinks are being used to silence dissent. The creation of fake news, and fake news accounts on social media has been a danger to the political health of the country. According to Kate Lamble and Megha Mohan of BBC news, "What we're seeing on social media again is manufactured reality… They also create a very real chilling effect against normal people, against journalists (who) are the first targets, and they attack in very personal ways with death threats and rape threats." Journalists are often risking their lives in publishing articles that contest fake news in the Philippines.

The 2016 Filipino election was influenced, in large part, by false information propagated by fake news outlets. By New York Times contributor Miguel Syjuco’s account, President Rodrigo Duterte benefited from a disproportionate amount of complimentary fake news compared to his opponents. The pro-Duterte propaganda spread across Filipino social media include fake endorsements from prominent public figures like Pope Francis and Angela Merkel. Duterte's own campaign was responsible for a portion of the misinformation spread during the election; according to a study from Oxford University’s Computational Propaganda Research Program, Duterte’s campaign paid an estimated $200,000 for dedicate trolls to undermine dissenters and disseminate misinformation in 2016.

An incident was the accusation made by Justice Secretary Vitaliano Aguirre II regarding 2017 Marawi Crisis in which he tagged various opposition senators and other people as masterminds of the attack based on a photo shared through social media and other blog sites which produces fake news. Another government official, Communications Assistant Secretary Margaux "Mocha" Uson has been accused of spreading fake news.

The prevalence of fake news in the Philippines have pushed lawmakers to file laws to combat it, like criminalizing its dissemination. The Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines strongly opposes the spread of fake news as a sin, and published a list of fake news websites.

Poland

Polish historian Jerzy Targalski (pl) noted fake news websites had infiltrated Poland through anti-establishment and right-wing sources that copied content from Russia Today. Targalski observed there existed about 20 specific fake news websites in Poland that spread Russian disinformation in the form of fake news. One example cited was fake news that Ukraine announced the Polish city of Przemyśl as occupied Polish land.

Poland's anti-EU Law and Justice (PiS) government has been accused of spreading "illiberal disinformation" to undermine public confidence in the European Union. Maria Snegovaya of Columbia University said: "The true origins of this phenomenon are local. The policies of Fidesz and Law and Justice have a lot in common with Putin's own policies."

Some mainstream outlets were long accused of fabricating half-true or outright false information. One of popular TV stations, TVN, in 2010 attributed to Jarosław Kaczyński (then an opposition leader) words that "there will be times, when true Poles will come to the power". However, Kaczyński has never uttered those words in the commented speech.

Russia

Russian state has allegedly invested significant resources in organized and systematic distribution of fake news on an industrial scale. News agencies Russia Today and Sputnik International, Olgino troll factory and hackers from APT28 are all officially or unofficially associated with Russian government structures and used as part of organized active measures campaign to influence global public opinion on politically sensitive matters whenever Russian point of view conflicts with the Western one.

See also: Russia–European_Union_relations § Allegations of Russian intimidation and destabilisation of EU states

Classified briefings in the summer of 2016 from the CIA indicate that Russia attempted to sway the vote in favor of Donald Trump as president of the United States.

Singapore

Under existing Singapore law, "Any person who transmits or causes to be transmitted a message which he knows to be false or fabricated shall be guilty of an offence".

On 18 March 2015, a fake screenshot of Prime Minister's Office website announcing the demise of the Mr Lee Kuan Yew went viral. Several international news agencies such as CNN and China Central Television fell for the prank and reported it as news. The image was created by a student to demonstrate to his classmates how fake news could be easily created and propagated. The student received stern police warning as a consequence.

The Minister for Law K. Shanmugam views the current remedies as limited and ineffective and has indicated that the government intends to introduce legislation to combat fake news in 2018.

The Mothership, which was founded by ex-Minister George Yeo, has been rapped by MOE for propagating fake news on Singapore's culture of compliance purportedly made by its official. The States Times Review, which claimed a near-zero turnout to mock at the late President S. R. Nathan's state funeral, was singled out by K Shanmugam for spreading fake news. Even, STOMP, owned by government-controlled SPH has not been spared of such accusations.

It does not help that the integrity and impartiality of the mainstream media is in doubt due to political interference and self-censorship. Legislation against fake news is regarded by some as a further attempt to curb the free flow of information, so that only the "real news", as dictated by the government, gets disseminated to the public.

A state-run website, Factually, has been set up by the Ministry of Communications and Information to present the government's version of news, purportedly to represent "facts" and counter "falsehoods", especially on issues of public interest such as environment, housing and transport.

South Africa

A wide range of South African media sources have reported fake news as a growing problem and tool to both increase distrust in the media, discredit political opponents, and divert attention from corruption. Media outlets owned by the Gupta family have been noted by other South African media organisations such as The Huffington Post (South Africa), Sunday Times, Radio 702, and City Press for targeting them. Individuals targeted include Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan who was seen as blocking Gupta attempts at state capture with accusations levelled against Gordhan of promoting state capture for "white monopoly capital".

The African National Congress (ANC) was taken to court by Sihle Bolani for unpaid work she did during the election on the ANC's behalf. In court papers Bolani stated that the ANC used her to launch and run a covert R50 million fake news and disinformation campaign during the 2016 municipal elections with the intention of discrediting opposition parties.

South Korea

South Korean journalists and media experts lament political hostility between Korea's which distorts Media coverage of North Korea and North Korea has attributed erroneous reporting to South Korea and United States with being critical to media organization Chosun Ilbo while also American journalist Barbara Demick had made similar criticisms on media coverage of North.

Spain

Fake news in Spain has become much more prevalent in the past year, but has been a major factor in Spain's history. The United States government published a fake article in regards to the purchase of the Philippines from Spain, which they had already purchased. Despite this, the topic of fake news has traditionally not been given much attention to in Spain, until the newspaper El País launched the new blog dedicated strictly to truthful news entitled "Hechos"; which literally translates to "fact" in Spanish. David Alandete, the managing editor of El País, stated how many people misinterpret fake news as real because the sites "have similar names, typography, layouts and are deliberately confusing" (Southern). Alandete made it the new mission of El País "to respond to fake news" (Scott). María Ramírez of Univision Communications has stated that much of the political fake news circulating in Spain is due to the lack of investigative journalism on the topics. Most recently El País has created a fact-checking position for five employees, to try and debunk the fake news released.

Sweden

The Swedish Security Service issued a report in 2015 identifying propaganda from Russia infiltrating Sweden with the objective to amplify pro-Russian propaganda and inflame societal conflicts. The Swedish Civil Contingencies Agency (MSB), part of the Ministry of Defence of Sweden, identified fake news reports targeting Sweden in 2016 that originated from Russia. Swedish Civil Contingencies Agency official Mikael Tofvesson stated a pattern emerged where views critical of Sweden were constantly repeated. The Local identified these tactics as a form of psychological warfare. The newspaper reported the MSB identified Russia Today and Sputnik News as significant fake news purveyors. As a result of growth in this propaganda in Sweden, the MSB planned to hire six additional security officials to fight back against the campaign of fraudulent information.

Taiwan

In a report in December 2015 by The China Post, a fake video shared online showed people a light show purportedly made at the Shihmen Reservoir. The Northern Region Water Resources Office confirmed there was no light show at the reservoir and the event had been fabricated. The fraud led to an increase in tourist visits to the actual attraction.

According to the news updated paper from the Time World in regards the global threat to free speech, the Taiwanese government has reformed its policy on education and it will include "media literacy" as one part of school curriculum for the students. It will be included to develop the critical thinking skills needed while using social media. Further, the work of media literacy will also include the skills needed to analyze propaganda and sources, so the student can clarify what is fake news.

Ukraine

Since the Euromaidan and the beginning of the Ukrainian crisis in 2014, the Ukrainian media circulated several fake news stories and misleading images, including a dead rebel photograph with a Photoshop-painted tattoo which allegedly indicated that he belonged to Russian Special Forces, a video game screenshot disguised as a satellite image ostensibly showing the shelling of the Ukrainian border from Russia, and the threat of a Russian nuclear attack against the Ukrainian troops. The recurring theme of these fake news was that Russia was solely to blame for the crisis and the war in Donbass.

In 2015 the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe published a report criticizing Russian disinformation campaigns to disrupt relations between Europe and Ukraine after ouster of Viktor Yanukovych. According to Deutsche Welle, similar tactics were used by fake news websites during the US elections. A website, StopFake was created by Ukrainian activists in 2014 to debunk fake news in Ukraine, including media portrayal of the Ukrainian crisis.

United Kingdom

See also: Fake news website § United Kingdom

On December 8, 2016, Chief of the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6) Alex Younger delivered a speech to journalists at the MI6 headquarters where he called fake news and propaganda damaging to democracy. Younger said the mission of MI6 was to combat propaganda and fake news in order to deliver to his government a strategic advantage in the information warfare arena, and assist other nations including Europe. He called such methods of fake news propaganda online a "fundamental threat to our sovereignty". Younger said all nations that hold democratic values should feel the same worry over fake news.

However, definitions of "fake news" have been controversial in the UK, with political satire being seen as a key element of British humor.

United States

See also: Fake news websites in the United States and Media bias in the United States

Fake news became a global subject and was widely introduced to billions as a subject mainly due to the 2016 U.S. presidential election. Numerous political commentators and journalists wrote and stated in media that 2016 was the year of fake news and as a result nothing will ever be the same in politics and cyber security. Governmental bodies in the U.S. and Europe started looking at contingencies and regulations to combat fake news specially when as part of a coordinated intelligence campaign by hostile foreign governments. Online tech giants Facebook and Google started putting in place means to combat fake news in 2016 as a result of the phenomenon becoming globally known. Google Trends shows that the term "fake news" gained traction in online searches in October 2016.

Professor Philip N. Howard of the Oxford Internet Institute at the University of Oxford studied web traffic in the United States prior to the election. He found that about one half of all news on Twitter directed at Michigan was junk or fake, and the other half came from actual professional news sources.

According to BuzzFeed, during the last three months of the presidential campaign, of the top twenty fake election-related articles on Facebook, seventeen were anti-Clinton or pro-Trump. Facebook users interacted with them more often than with stories from genuine news outlets.

Debate over the impact of fake news in the election, and whether or not it significantly impacted the election of the Republican candidate Donald Trump, whom the most shared fake stories favored, led researchers from Stanford to study the impact of fake news shared on social media, where 62% of U.S. adults get their news from. They assessed that 8% of readers of fake news recalled and believed in the content they were reading, though the same share of readers also recalled and believed in "placebos" — stories they did not actually read, but that were produced by the authors of the study. In comparison, over 50% of the participants recalled reading and believed in true news stories. The authors do not assess the final impact of these numbers on the election, but seek to "offer theoretical and empirical background" for the debate.

In the United States in the run-up to the 2016 presidential election, fake news was particularly prevalent and spread rapidly over social media "bots", according to researchers at the Oxford Internet Institute.

60 Minutes producers said President Trump uses the phrase "fake news" to mean something else: "I take offense with what you said."

In the early weeks of his presidency, U.S. President Donald Trump frequently used the term "fake news" to refer to traditional news media, singling out CNN. Linguist George Lakoff says this creates confusion about the phrase's meaning. According to CBS 60 Minutes, President Trump may use the term fake news to describe any news, however legitimate or responsible, with which he may disagree.

After Republican Colorado State Senator Ray Scott used the term as a reference to a column in the Grand Junction Daily Sentinel, the newspaper's publisher threatened a defamation lawsuit.

In December 2016, an armed North Carolina man, Edgar Maddison Welch, traveled to Washington, D.C., and opened fire at the Comet Ping Pong pizzeria, driven by a fake online news story accusing the pizzeria of hosting a pedophile ring run by the Democratic Party leaders. These stories tend to go viral quickly. Social media systems, such as Facebook, play a large role in the broadcasting of fake news. These systems show users content that reflects their interests and history, leading to fake and misleading news. Following a plea agreement with prosecutors, Welch pleaded guilty to the federal charge of interstate transport of firearms and a District of Columbia charge of assault with a dangerous weapon. Welch was sentenced to four years in prison on June 22, 2017 and agreed to pay $5,744.33 for damages to the restaurant.

A situation study by The New York Times shows how a tweet by a person with no more than 40 followers went viral and was shared 16,000 times on Twitter. The tweet concluded that protesters were paid to be bussed to Trump demonstrations and protest. A twitter user then posted a photograph of two buses outside a building, claiming that those were the Anti-Trump protesters. The tweet immediately went viral on both Twitter and Facebook. Fake news can easily spread due to the speed and accessibility of modern communications technology.

A CNN investigation examined exactly how fake news can start to trend. There are "bots" used by fake news publishers that make their articles appear more popular than they are. This makes it more likely for people to discover them. "Bots are fake social media accounts that are programmed to automatically 'like' or retweet a particular message."

Fraudulent stories during the 2016 U.S. presidential election included the claim that Donald Trump was born in Pakistan, a viral post popularized on Facebook that Pope Francis had endorsed Trump, and another that actor Denzel Washington "backs Trump in the most epic way possible". Donald Trump's son and campaign surrogate Eric Trump, top national security adviser Michael Flynn, and then-campaign managers Kellyanne Conway and Corey Lewandowski shared fake news stories during the campaign.

Starting in July 2017, President Trump's 2020 presidential campaign launched Real News Update, an online news program posted on Facebook. The series reports on Trump's accomplishments as president of the United States and claims to highlight "real news" as opposed to alleged "fake news". Lara Trump introduced one video by saying "If you are tired of all the fake news out there...we are going to bring you nothing but the facts" and "I bet you haven't heard about all the accomplishments the president had this week, because there's so much fake news out there". The show has been labelled as "propaganda".

See also

• Alarmism
• Alternative facts
• Climate change denial
• Fearmongering
• Internet meme
• Journalism ethics and standards
• Lying press – German phrase
• Media bias
• Media coverage of North Korea
• Pseudohistory

Further reading

• "Inside a Fake News Sausage Factory: 'This Is All About Income'" The New York Times November 25, 2016
• An online journal for Paul Horner and all of his hoaxes and fake news over the past 20 years
• Elizabeth Schumacher (January 4, 2018). "Fake news 'casts wide net but has little effect'". Deutsche Welle.