In this blog post, we will look at why fake news that looks real has emerged, how it spreads, and how to distinguish it.
Recently, the term “fake news” has been appearing continuously in the politics and society sections of daily newspapers and online news sites, and there are opinions that it should be recognized as a major issue that cannot be overlooked. In fact, the concept of “fake news” has emerged in the last year or two and become a hot topic, but in the past, terms such as ‘matador’ and “black propaganda” were used to describe “false information that misleads readers,” and fake news existed as a variation of lies. In order to solve the problem of fake news that is currently emerging, we need to look more closely at why fake news has become such a hot topic in 2017. The main reason for this is that, with the development of information and communication technology, the channels through which the general public accesses news have shifted from traditional media such as newspapers and broadcasting to digital media platforms such as search engines and social media, making it possible to distribute and spread a much larger amount of news in an instant without any verification process. Here, I would like to point out the anonymity of lies as an important factor. I will discuss this in the middle of this article. Some may question, “Fake news? Isn’t it enough to just not read it or filter it out?” However, the general public obtains information with the expectation that the information we choose to read is true. Therefore, it is difficult to expect that fake news, which is similar in form to existing media news, will be filtered out by readers who expect it to be true.
Many groups that create fake news recognize this as an opportunity to profit and pursue it relentlessly. Fake news can bring various benefits to readers, and this may reveal the inevitable reason for its existence. So what does fake news seek to achieve?
First, it can gain economic benefits. Fake news is not concerned with the truth, so it can attract readers with sensational content that goes beyond the facts through exaggeration, falsehoods, and distortion, thereby increasing the number of views. This increases the level of interest and exposure of the news, allowing it to win the competition between news outlets, which in turn leads to economic benefits. Some may ask, “Isn’t it enough to just not choose fake news?” However, the amount of time an individual has to consume news is limited, and the amount of information available during that time is overwhelming, so individuals have no choice but to select and focus on certain things. It is undeniable that in the competition between these pieces of information, news with sensational content that arouses the curiosity of readers is more likely to survive.
In addition, the ultimate problem is that fake news is sufficient to incite the public. In fact, this factor is thought to be much closer to the ultimate purpose of fake news than the economic benefits mentioned above. If each piece of news created in a short period of time can be used as a tool to make readers think and judge as the author wants, then fake news will become even more rampant in framing and inciting the public whenever issues arise that involve conflicting political and social interests, such as presidential elections and diplomatic issues between countries (the Korea-US FTA, the agreement on comfort women with Japan, and the conflict with China over the deployment of THAAD). Think about it. What if the news you read and the information you accept lead you to make a certain judgment that is exactly what someone else intended? It’s already chilling.
It is clear what fake news wants to achieve. It wants to use readers to benefit the interests of the group that created the fake news. Of course, global IT companies such as Google and Facebook are working hard to develop algorithms that can remove fake news in order to solve this problem. However, since the target of fake news is clearly the readers who subscribe to it, it is necessary to carefully examine the social implications of fake news and seek solutions. So, what are the social implications that are consistent with the reasons why fake news has emerged? To find the answer, I will discuss the relationship between lies and anonymity, which I mentioned in the introduction.
Everyone has experience telling a lie. Whether intentional or unintentional, the reason for lying can basically be seen as a means to obtain psychological or material gain from the target of the lie. If so, the reason why many interest groups refrain from lying even though they can gain benefits by deceiving others can be seen as stemming from institutional and legal constraints, but I believe it is to avoid the risk of losing trust when the lie is exposed. However, as mentioned in the introduction, an environment has been created in which a vast amount of news data can be produced without source verification or validation. Furthermore, the burden of risk associated with the aforementioned falsehoods, or fake news, has disappeared due to a kind of anonymity granted to the interest groups responsible for news production, as we do not check the journalists or newspapers that wrote the news we see. This can be interpreted as having led to the spread of fake news. So, what message should readers take away from this?
I would like to summarize that message as “Readers, be active!” The relationship between the original news and the readers who read it has always been one-sided. In other words, the news can convey facts (or even falsehoods in the case of fake news) to readers along with the author’s interpretation or opinion, but readers cannot easily express their judgments or opinions to the author of the news, no matter what they think after reading it. This one-sidedness has led to a passive/compliant attitude among readers, which has become a factor that prevents them from filtering out fake news, making it a threatening problem for us.
Therefore, it can be said that the autonomous solution that readers can implement is to break away from this passive attitude and respond to the problem of fake news in a proactive and active manner. Although this may seem somewhat abstract, there are various ways to put it into practice. For example, methods that are already in use, such as allowing readers to comment on articles, rating the reliability and accuracy of news articles, and promoting discussion forums for readers with similar interests, will help encourage readers to take a more active role. From a personal perspective, and furthermore from a social perspective, one solution would be to establish an institution such as a fair media committee that can judge the fairness and reliability of news, arbitrarily select news from relevant media outlets, verify the facts, and attach a “fake news alert” to the news of the media outlet in question when a certain number of news items are determined to be fake news, thereby raising readers’ awareness and encouraging them to subscribe to news with caution. The point is that the most effective solution to filtering out and suppressing the fake news that is currently rampant is for readers to make a conscious effort to actively subscribe to news.
So far, we have looked at the reasons and purposes behind the emergence of fake news, which has become a hot topic, as well as the messages that readers should take away and the efforts that should be made to resolve the issue. Perhaps the emergence of fake news, which has been unilaterally accepted by the public, will be an opportunity for the public to become more aware of the importance of information acceptance. Of course, it will be difficult for individual readers to develop the critical thinking skills necessary to filter through the vast amount of information available. However, the mere fact that readers have begun to recognize that they should not be swayed by the news, but rather accept it critically and utilize it proactively, will serve as a good foundation for controlling the fake news that is constantly being produced.
Ultimately, only readers can defeat fake news.
