Fake news categorized

At our programs in debating, we teach students about fake news. Here are some categories that we see emerging clearly over the past few years:

1. Factual fakes that are relatively harmless in content (but end up being the first step in the path leading to more gullibility) – elephants drunk on rice wine in China due to the lack of crowds in Corona lockdown times, dolphins in Venice’s canals.
2. Satire/parody ‘news’ that is too close on the other side of the news that they seek to parody. These articles end up in the same channels they seek to discredit as evidence for the one-sided view.
3. Out of context compilations – true news but from another date, another country, passed off in whichever is the current context. For example, the sleeping elephants in from point 1 were real elephants sleeping in a field. The context and story were put together using this picture as evidence is the issue. The dolphins were always there, in another part of the seas near Venice, that wasn’t news at all.
4. Fallacious arguments – videos put together that use fallacies (which we also teach) like whataboutery, false analogies, false binaries, etc. Several advertisements are examples here – driving a certain kind of car or wearing a specific deodorant means a person attracts a significant other. If only that were that easy, huh?
5. Intentional deceit through websites that look legitimate and more recently through legitimate news sites that haven’t verified sources, checked facts. This is usually agenda driven and finding repeated phrases, thoughts helps to identify this agenda. In recent times, we have been told that a concoction of ginger and garlic will drive away Corona, a virus that has killed so many!
6. Sensational videos which do not cite the source, person/group making them which are skewed towards or against specific demographies. These are easily forwarded and hard to verify without conscious fact checking by websites like hoaxslayer, altnews, etc. They are set up to hit a person emotionally, either through fear or hate. There is usually a kernel of truth around which these items are built up but not in that situation or with that bias. These are rarely ever positive because there is an agenda driving it. If we can’t identify the source, we should think critically to either find the source or find the agenda/fake news crumbs leading to it.
7. Deep fakes – the most dangerous of them all, technology mediated. They use widely available videos and pictures to simulate the movement of lips, facial expression and have actual pictures of actual people saying content that is unlikely to be their position. An example would be say, having Barack Obama campaigning for his opponent.

The principle that all fake news use is integral to human nature. When we believe something, we are looking for evidence that makes that position ‘the truth’. This is because once a person commits to a position, they see reversing that position as a matter of personal integrity versus refining their position further in view of new evidence to the contrary.

When we believe fake news, we feel foolish and would much rather cover that up to protect ourselves. This is not necessary since someone was consciously trying to mislead us with an agenda in mind.

That we get misled by fake news is dangerous but not as dangerous as the underlying prejudices we carry. If we were told that we are snot nosed aliens with goo dripping from us, we would laugh, since that is blatantly untrue. But when a certain article or video hits a vein of truth that is close to our beliefs, they are more likely to get a different reaction.

In times like these, where we need to jointly fight an invisible enemy, fake news can do more damage. It can have us going against scientific evidence and putting ourselves in a position where we harm others.

Please feel free to find examples that will illustrate any one (or more) of these categories. Are there other categories that you feel haven’t been identified? We would love to know.

 

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