Living in an era of online lies and fakes

With the emergence of various digital platforms, journalistic practices have undergone significant changes in recent years. While these changes have introduced innovative forms of communication, they have also created opportunities for disinformation, commonly referred to as “fake news”.

Defining fake news is a contentious issue, although most people recognise the common understanding of what it involves: reports that are deliberately fabricated, often malicious and politically motivated, disseminated on social media and sometimes produced for cash.

Those “fake news outlets”, as we know, do not adhere to the editorial standards and processes that traditional news media employ to ensure the accuracy and credibility of information. It mimics the content and format of legitimate news media while intersecting with various types of misinformation.

However, fabricated stories masquerading as serious journalism are unlikely to disappear, as they have become a lucrative avenue for some writers and a potential means to influence public opinion.

We should anticipate their prevalence during any major event, as evidenced during the Covid-19 pandemic, when misinformation reached unprecedented levels. In wars and conflicts, such stories serve as a primary weapon.

For example, as soon as you get out of bed and check your phone, a video appears showing what appears to be an air strike, accompanied by a post claiming that missiles have been launched. In moments like this, when tensions are high in the country where you live, it can evoke a sense of panic.

In the recent military confrontations between Israel and Iran, as well as the conflicts between India and Pakistan, the most disturbing aspect was that the battles did not occur solely in the skies or on the ground. Instead, they unfolded on platforms such as WhatsApp, X, Telegram and Facebook, where footage from past conflicts was circulated as breaking news.

Images and videos from Syria, Gaza and Yemen have been misrepresented in this manner, including deepfake videos that portray fabricated speeches by national leaders, which fuel warmongering, provocation, rumours and fears.

A video claiming to show an explosion caused by a Pakistani counter-attack was found to be from an explosion at the main port of the Lebanese capital of Beirut in 2020. The so-called wannabe nationalists in different countries became their wholesalers!

However, when news can spread across the globe in seconds, merely labelling its source does little to stem the flow of misinformation. Few users take the time to verify the origins of the information they share and mainstream media has been known to publish stories that lack accuracy.

“In today’s world, it is very easy to create, modify, fabricate and widely share various messages. The information environment is polluted in many ways. Even if the information itself is genuine, it might be used out of context and transformed into a tool for propaganda,” writes HiveMind in the Commons Library newsletter while defining disinformation.

But what significant is that fact-checking by online users has been helpful in correcting people's misconceptions. As a result, individuals are changing their minds after encountering these debunks, even when the original misinformation aligned with their beliefs.

Agencies like the International Fact-Checking Network have coordinated efforts among their accredited members in verifying the facts before the broadcast of the reports. News agencies such as Reuters, BBC and AFP Fact Check all actively took extra efforts to debunk those false claims.

It is welcoming that Meta in early January, announced a controversial shift in its approach to disinformation, replacing independent fact-checkers on Facebook and Instagram with a Community Notes-style system.

Still, a significant lack of media literacy persists, hindering the ability to evaluate the credibility of news sources. This underscores the urgent need for education focused on identifying fake news. After all, we all need to become more sophisticated consumers of news!