NewsLiteracyPlaybook - Flipbook - Page 10
History of Misinformation
10
Chapter Two
A Brief History
of Misinformation
The phrase “fake news” has come into frequent
usage only recently, but the concept, a broad one, is
old. (How old? Pope Francis suggested in January
2018 that it can be traced to the serpent’s lies to
Eve in the Garden of Eden.)
For eons, people around the world have shared all
sorts of information — the news that’s important
to have, to be sure, but also the latest rumors and
the hottest gossip. Community, city, regional and
national leaders handed down what they wanted
the public to know and believe. Then, as now,
there were three basic elements to the transfer
of information: the source, the message itself
and the recipients.
While these are still the basic elements of
information exchange within communities and
among societies today, technology and the
internet have immeasurably changed the nature of
each and created a vastly different ecosystem for
news.
Today, everyone with an internet connection — 4.3
billion people as of January 2019, or more than
half of the world’s population — can be a publisher,
even just by retweeting a Twitter post or sharing a
meme. That means there are billions and billions of
pieces of information, distributed as images, videos,
GIFs, news articles and more. And technology allows
more sophisticated forms of distortions of what is
published — and greater speed in spreading lies.
As news consumption has moved online, news
organizations long recognized for their credibility and
adherence to traditional standards of quality journalism have seen their profits disappear and their staffs
decimated. As a result, many communities have lost
common sources of information — and a common
understanding of facts.
Add social platforms with their algorithms and bots,
and the public is now caught in a powerful and dangerous whirlwind of self- and auto-selected news, rumors,
gossip, state-sponsored propaganda and falsehoods.
And dangerous it is: While technology has led to
leaps in people’s abilities to stay in touch with family
and friends, lead more informed lives, create positive
change in their communities and more, it has also led
to a world in which the internet and social media platforms have allowed people to see only the viewpoints
they want to see, with their existing beliefs reinforced
by what the internet serves up. Today, technologies
are being used as weapons in a fight for power and
money, tapping into and exacerbating our best and
worst traits.
Of today’s media fragmentation, consisting of filter
bubbles and echo chambers, Jonathan Albright of
Columbia University’s Tow Center for Digital Journalism in New York City says: “Our technological and
communication infrastructure — the ways that we experience reality, the ways we get news — are literally
disintegrating around us.”