The Allure of Fake News in America

Over the past few years, the phrase “fake news” has become a household word in the United States. Like the term “propaganda” during the Cold War era, “fake news” has come to connote the manipulation of the public through misleading or frankly false information. Fake news can be spread by anyone with a Twitter account or Facebook page, making it far too easy for fake news to proliferate. In fact, the mainstream media can even spread fake news, knowingly or not. As beneficial as social media might be to the democratic sharing of information, social media also facilitates fake news. One of the reasons why fake news has an allure is prior exposure. When a person reads a story that resonates with them, they tend to believe that story to be true without going through the process of fact checking or verification. The phenomenon of confirmation bias ensures that individuals will share a news item if it coincides with their personal or political beliefs. Another reason why fake news can be alluring is that people like to join a crowd and get caught up in mob mentality. If enough people share a news item, it goes “viral,” making it seem even more credible due to its popularity. In other words, people are prone to believing a story just because it is popular: a phenomenon known as the ad populum logical fallacy. The problem with fake news is that it leads to ignorance and undermines democracy. Confirmation bias and mob mentality promote the proliferation of fake news, and only education and awareness can curtail the influence fake news has on society.
One of the main reasons why fake news proliferates is that people tend to believe things that they are already familiar with, or which confirms their prejudices. Prior exposure to a fake news story makes a person more likely to believe in the veracity of the information. The prior exposure phenomenon is a type of confirmation bias, whereby “we pick out those bits of data that make us feel good because they confirm our prejudices,” (Heshmat, 2015, p. 1). New information might create cognitive dissonance, a conflict between what we believe to be true and what is actually true based on science or reason. Donald Trump has frequently referred to factual evidence as “fake news,” a clear example of how people cling to false beliefs because they do not feel comfortable with change. Trump “has labeled accurate news reporting as ‘fake news’ or spread false information himself, while at the same time accusing the media of being ‘fake’ or ‘dishonest,’” (Kiely, 2018, p. 1). Many people are starting to have trouble telling the difference between fake and real news because of poor leadership and a lack of ability to think critically and practice media literacy. In fact, just a one-time exposure to a fake news item on a social media platform like Facebook increases the likelihood that a person will believe the fake news story, with the effects lasting as long as a week (Pennycook, Cannon, & Rand, 2017). Fake news is sinister and difficult to curtail because even just one exposure to a fake news story can reinforce prejudicial or irrational beliefs.
Mob mentality is at work with fake news, as research shows a viral post is more likely to be perceived as trustworthy even when it is provably false. Becker (2016) notes that the proliferation of fake news is akin to a mob mentality, whereby people believe what they read simply because it is popular. The willingness to believe something just because it is popular is a type of logical fallacy known as ad populum. People may be afraid to disagree with their peers or with the general public, perhaps because they doubt their own ability to think critically or because they are afraid of being socially isolated. As a result of mob mentality, a viral post on social media is more likely to be perceived of as true than one that can be fact-checked (Papanastasiou, 2017). Because social media algorithms also contribute to the proliferation of fake news stories, curbing the influence of fake news has become a daunting, if not totally impossible, task. Social media works on the principles of viral sharing, whereby the more a post is liked or shared, the more that same post will be disseminated. Real and truthful news stories or research papers will not show up in news feeds. If people do not see the real information in their social media feeds, all they have access to is fake news.
Fake news is also spread because Americans believe in unbridled free speech: a gross distortion of the First Amendment. “The fact that fake news is free speech does not nullify the danger it poses for open discourse, freedom of opinion, or democratic governance,” (Nossel, 2017, p. 1). Just as Americans have distorted the Second Amendment, with some claiming that they have the right to have and use semi-automatic weapons, Americans have also begun to believe that free speech entitles them to wanton ignorance. Trump is the bastion of ignorance in America, and has tried to distort the meaning of fake news itself. As Borchers (2017) points out, Trump believes the term “applies to just about every piece of information he doesn't like,” (p. 1). Fake news is not news that makes people uncomfortable, but news that can be proven false. The freedom of speech provision in the Constitution does allow people to say whatever they want, and even get that material to go viral. Given the nature of digital media, it is technically impossible to stop false information and misinformation. It is, however, possible to find a middle ground. Without restricting free speech, Americans can take greater responsibility for how they perceive the stories they read online and on television.
Free speech is a cornerstone of democracy, and free speech can coexist with information literacy. Librarians are at the forefront of media literacy, and can help stop fake news (Becker, 2016). For example, librarians can hold classes about fake news, give lectures at elementary schools to get young children to think critically from a young age, and also work hard to lobby against social media algorithms that enable fake news. In this way, librarians can use their own power of free speech to teach young people how to tell the difference between fake and real news. Likewise, social media organizations can allow people to tag news items as being fake or factual. Doing this requires tremendous personal and collective responsibility. Aggressive and systematic tagging of fake news is essential because anything that is not tagged as “fake” will be perceived of as real (Pennycook & Rand, 2017). Just because a person says something does not mean that person is correct. Curbing fake news is not an affront to free speech. On the contrary, curbing false information is crucial in a democracy. Citizens of a democracy have a right to access information. Spreading fake news is not, on the other hand, a basic human right. There are already important restrictions on free speech, restrictions that ensure that the rights of others are not infringed upon. The most commonly cited restriction on free speech is that it is considered unethical and even illegal to make bomb threats or yell “fire!” in a crowded theater. Hate speech is also illegal, even though restricting hate speech means restricting free speech. Free speech is important because people should be allowed to criticize their government without being put into jail as they would be in authoritarian or dictatorial societies. Free speech enables the creation and dissemination of fake news, and free speech can also be the most effective weapon against fake news.
A common counterargument is that it is too difficult to debunk fake news for technological reasons. Social media success depends on the use of algorithms, which allow some content to float to the top of people’s news feeds. Some of the algorithms used in social media sites make it almost impossible to prevent content from going viral, which is why fake news stories have been shared so rapidly. Yet new algorithms are being used to stop fake news, using digital and human fact checkers (Waddell, 2016). In other words, the technology has been evolving as social media sites recognize the important role they play in stopping fake news from spreading. Human beings create algorithms; therefore, human beings can create new algorithms. Also, social media sites are not ethically neutral. They can spearhead revolutions in information literacy. Many social media sites are run by people who do care about information literacy, people who want their platforms to be associated with democratic ideals and information literacy (Waddell, 2016). Facebook and other social media sites are using human and digital tools to identify truth from fiction, to flag false stories and prevent them from spreading. For instance, there are ways of “curbing social bots,” which would be “an effective strategy for mitigating the spread of online misinformation,” (Shao, Ciampaglia, Varol, et al, 2017, p. 1). Facebook in particular has been creating new algorithms, including one “software algorithm to flag stories that may be suspicious and send them to third-party fact checkers,” (“Facebook Has a New Plan to Curb ‘Fake News’ 2017, p. 1). Fake news can and should be actively curtailed, because intelligence and critical thinking are even more important to a democracy than unbridled free speech.
Social media can continue to be profitable and useful without enabling ignorance. To overcome the problems with algorithms, it is also important to target audiences and bots that are geared towards vulnerable populations like “Trump supporters and young adults,” (Pennycook & Rand, 2017, p. 1). Vulnerable populations are those that lack access to information literacy tools and media literacy development. Organizations like Snopes and Politifact have worked with Facebook in recent years to provide a systematic means of tagging all content on the Internet—a daunting but not impossible task (“Facebook Has a New Plan to Curb ‘Fake News’ 2017). Researchers know that human beings tend to believe what confirms their prejudices and worldviews due to confirmation bias. Similarly, researchers know that mob mentality and the desire to conform to social trends also leads people to believe viral or popular information, even if it is false. Based on what scientists know about psychological and sociological underpinnings of fake news beliefs, librarians, communications specialists, educators, tech companies, journalists, and other stakeholders can create an effective protocol for aggressive fact checking and media literacy.
Although fake news is spread because of basic human psychological and sociological needs, fake news is a serious problem that exacerbates ignorance and undermines democracy. Fake news is a form of propaganda. When the White House attacks genuine journalism, accusing it of being fake news, Americans risk losing their sense of reality. Democracy is not possible in a society filled with ignorant people, and those who refuse to acknowledge the truth. Communications and media specialists, educators, librarians, and policymakers need to work together with the tech industry to develop the means by which to stop the spread of fake news. Media organizations and technology companies can only do so much; individuals have a personal responsibility to themselves and their community to research all news items and refuse to share fake news. Based on what is known about the genesis and spreading of fake news, it is possible to launch a comprehensive counterattack on this menace to society.



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