Participatory Propaganda in Seven Simple Steps

25
FAKE
NEWS
What is new is the ease with which disinformation
can now be published and spread. With tools, such
as Wordpress, an online content management
system, it really takes little effort to create a website
capable of publishing whatever the creator wishes
– and social media enables the spread of that
content like never before. Indeed, the rate at which
disinformation is being spread online prompted
a report 31 on the subject by Facebook in April
2017 along with disclosure about what the social
network aims to do about it.
One form of disinformation, fake news, has been
well documented in the context of the 2016 U.S.
presidential election. As Facebook defines it in
its report, fake news consists of “articles that
purport to be factual, but which contain intentional
misstatements of fact with the intention to arouse
passions, attract viewership, or deceive.” 32
Fake news is a global problem. 33 Lies spread
faster online than the truth. 34 Conspiracy theories,
often a feature of fake news, reduce complex
issues to “binary opposition, simplifying - and
misrepresenting - the political space.” 35 And as
Facebook noted in its report, governments and
non-state actors alike are spreading disinformation
online. 36
A person’s degree of partisanship is directly
correlated to their likelihood of believing conspiracy
theories or fake news. 37 And news shared by
known trusted opinion leaders on Facebook
influences audience perspectives. 38 Taken in
this context, it is alarming that Trump spreads
fake news, 39 and in his sharing, might account
for why one study found that those known false
news stories favouring Trump were shared 30
million times on Facebook to the 8 million shares
bestowed on those favouring Clinton in the three
months leading up to the election. 40