What is Fake News & Disinformation?
What is Fake News & Disinformation?
Disinformation and Fake News are formed of inaccurate or misleading information, deliberately published or shared through media outlets, with the intention of manipulating public opinion around specific topics such as politics, race, healthcare etc...
Whilst the term Fake News gained notoriety during the 2016 presidential election promoted by Trump, who claimed to coin the term, it has actually been in use since the 18th Century according to the Oxford Dictionary.
As early as the 12th Century disinformation has been used to drive false narratives for the promotion of anti-Semitism, pro-Soviet & Nazi ideologies, The War On Drugs, welfare reforms, the HIV epidemic and of course elections and the COVID pandemic. And, this doesn’t even begin to scratch the surface.
Fake News & Disinformation Now
The recent explosion in fake news has been driven by factors including geopolitical tensions, access to cheap high-speed internet, the rise of un-moderated social media platforms, and the need for publishers to drive traffic.
Although news consumers are waking up to the issue, a study by research firm IPSOS found that 86% of news consumers globally admit to being duped by fake news, not to mention that 23% of US news consumers say they have shared a made-up news story – either knowingly or not according to Pew Research.
The barriers to entry have been significantly lowered for anyone wanting to create and disseminate fake news and disinformation, and bad state actors now spend hundreds of millions of dollars on troll farms to help spread lies and deceit.
The Scale of The Problem
Every major political event now seems overshadowed by stories of manipulation from bad state actors, troll farms, and biased media channels promoting fake news. Just look at the 2016 US presidential elections, the Dominion defamation lawsuit, the Brazilian elections, and Brexit.
The World Economic Forum ranks the spread of disinformation and fake news among the world's top twenty global short & long-term risk, and according to threat intelligence company Cheq Misinformation & disinformation is costing the global economy $78bn per year, and losses in stock market value equating to $39bn per year.
Finally, Nina Schick, a leader and author in the field of generative AI, estimated that within four years about 90 percent of all online content could be synthetic media, which could include a substantial amount of disinformation.
The proliferation of platforms such as OpenAI and MidJourney will only add to the scale of the problem, and as we enter a year [2024] in which we will see the highest number of global elections in history fake news and disinformation will be rife across all continents as bad actors attempt to destabilise democracies.
The Future Of Fake News & Disinformation
Technology has been the key driver in aiding the creation and dissemination of fake news and disinformation from the printing press to photography, the internet, social media, and now generative AI. As technologies improve it will become more and more difficult to spot things like deep-fakes and our job of who to trust will become even tougher.
While the EU has invested upwards of $2bn into trying to halt the spread of mis/disinformation, and Google launched their Google News Initiative (GNI) in 2018 consumers' sentiment isn’t positive and Statista found that over 30% of people they surveyed believe the problem of fake news will worsen over the next five years.
Recommendations
To combat the rise in fake news and disinformation it has been proposed that a combined approach from governments, official news publications, journalists, social media networks, and influential companies would go some way to stemming the flow, but the reality of such an initiative would almost certainly raise concerns about press freedom.
There is no one-size-fits-all approach to combatting fake news and disinformation, and there is even an industry growing around disinformation detection and threat intelligence made up of both non-profit organisations and private companies.
SaaS platforms such as Cyabra and Factmata provide business intelligence tools for corporates to identify potential threats, and then non-profit organisations such as the Global Disinformation Index (GDI), and Newsguard offer fact-checking services for both businesses and publishers.
Mitify+ aims to provide a solution for both news consumers and businesses, handing agency back to individuals by providing a seamless and elegant way to identify and mitigate against the harmful effects of fake news and disinformation.
Ultimately, there does need to be a global effort from governments, organisations and tech businesses who can come together to help identify threats and provide both businesses and news consumers with the tools and education to help mitigate the harmful effects of fake news & disinformation.
