Author: Cassandra Jeffery
Oh, Trump.
Virtually every day the President of the United States is making headlines for an outlandish comment or rash decision. Sending shockwaves around the world, news of the President’s shenanigans often leaves diplomats cringing, citizens chomping at the politically polarized bit, and journalists everywhere feverishly typing away.
It’s fair to say that Trump’s outrageous, often prejudiced, and certainly questionable, actions have painted a particular picture of the 45th President of the United States of America, one that is often associated with fake news. In fact, I’m pretty sure there’s a comment out there somewhere in the Twitter-sphere that suggests he was the brilliant mastermind that coined fake news in the first place.
The trials and tribulations of Trump aside, fake news has always been and continues to be a serious and detrimental issue that affects not just America, but the world.
Donald may have hijacked the fake news spotlight with his easily meme-able hairdo and scandalous means of running a country, but it’s important to remember that misinformation continues to impact the lives of real people living in America. Undermining a fundamental right to factual, unbiased information, fake and sensationalized news is rapidly altering our ability to make informed and rationalized opinions on issues that significantly impact our lives.
So in light of sharing the fake news spotlight, here are three major fake news stories that made headlines in 2017.
- Illegal Immigrants Started the California Wildfires
In October 2017, a series of publications falsely blamed illegal immigrants and Muslims for starting the deadly Sonoma wildfire in California. According to Snopes, an independent fact checking website, news publication sites Freedom Junkshun, Breitbart, and Fox News falsely reported two separate individuals as the culprits behind the wildfire. Meanwhile, Sonoma County Sheriff Rob Giordano directly refuted these claims in a press conference.
“I want to talk about something, there’s a little rumour control issue. The Sonoma County Sheriff’s Office arrested a man on Sunday [15 October] for arson, in Maxwell Park, in Sonoma. There’s a story out there that he’s the arsonist for these fires, that is not the case. There is no indication he is related to these fires at all,” said Giordano in a video clip of the press release.
FactCheck.org, a nonpartisan, nonprofit consumer advocate for voters that aims to reduce the level of deception and confusion in U.S. politics, also set the record straight, after the headline “Illegal Alien Charged with California Wildfire that Killed 40 People,” ran on the website United States Illegal Alien Crime Report.
After looking into this accusation, FactCheck discovered that the individual in question, Jesus Fabian Gonzalez, was arrested for setting a small fire near the bridge where he had been living in Sonoma County on October 15th, a week after the major fires began. He was charged with one felony count of arson, which was not connected to the Sonoma wildfire.
2. Black Lives Matter “Thugs” Blocked Aid to Hurricane Harvey Victims
Far-right website, Our Land of the Free, published an article in August 2017 that falsely pinned Black Lives Matter protesters as a deterrent to life saving efforts by emergency responders.
“This is just sick! Emergency crews are working hard to make sure that they can be there to rescue Harvey victims, but leftist punks from the Black Lives matter clique don’t think people deserve to be saved,” read the article written by David “Tango” Foxtrot.
According to both Snopes and FactCheck, the article was sequentially picked up by several other outlets and shared all over social media as a factual and genuine news story.
The image embedded in the original fake article was a CNN photo from 2016, discovered FactCheck.
“It shows Black Lives Matter activists in Atlanta, Georgia, during a protest against police shootings of African Americans. Georgia state troopers and Atlanta police were blocking protesters from entering a highway,” read the FactCheck website.
Also important to note, hurricane Harvey made landfall in Texas, not Georgia.
3. Antifa Leftists to Start American Civil War
Towards the end of 2017, major news publications had a field day denouncing a widely circulated false claim that left radicals were planning some sort of government coup.
“For weeks, rumours have circulated among conspiratorial conservatives on Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, and some right-wing news sites that the loose coalition of anti-Trump demonstrators known as “Antifa” are plotting a revolution to begin on Nov. 4,” read an article published by Time magazine on November 3rd, 2017.
News organizations Vice, the New York Times, CNN, the Guardian, Politico Magazine, and several other outlets, also reported on this sensationalized claim.
“Antifa is a loosely defined group that includes organized anti-facist groups like Refuse Facism and a bunch of angry, anonymous people who show up at protests sometimes. It’s not a political party,” said Mike Pearl from Vice news. “It’s certainly not a collection of armed super soldiers looking to replace white Christians with Comrade Obama’s Gay-Muslim Coalition. (Which, to be completely clear, is a group I just made up, OK YouTubers?)”
The fake news story originally garnered traction after website, Silence is Consent, wrote that Antifa declared a civil war and announced a “day of anarchy” in late 2017. The author finished the article by asking readers to spread the story: “Please share this article with everyone you know — this is extremely important information and every single patriot in America must be prepared for November 4th.”
Snopes, along with some of the above mentioned news organizations, countered this fabricated story with a detailed version of events that lead to this wildly misleading claim.
“Despite what random people might say in homemade YouTube videos, they offer no proof that any anti-fascist groups are planning even a skirmish,” said Snopes.
Where Do We Go from Here
These three fake news stories are just a few examples of the many that have and continue to circulate in America and around the world. Surely, without a doubt, they will continue to garner interest in the future, too.
What we have learned from these fabrications is that radical ideas, regardless of political positioning, are blown out of proportion. This skewed reality is then widely shared and believed by the masses.
Although remedying this issue may seem like a dismal prospect, turning the fake news cycle around is possible, especially with organizations such as DNN helping to address this issue.
About DNN
DNN (Decentralized News Network) is a news curation platform powered by the Ethereum blockchain. It’s our goal to encourage the dissemination of factual, unbiased political news by incentivizing accountability at all levels of the news consumption process. We’re news for the people, by the people.
Our DNN token presale is currently live. Contact presale@dnn.media to participate.
Stay up-to-date with the latest project news by following our social channels: Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn. You can also join our project conversation on Slack: dnnmedia.slack.com, or on Telegram: t.me/DNNMedia.
We’re currently in need of journalists, writers, readers, and editors to test out our Alpha updates! Check out our website today, and let us know what you think. Participating in our Alpha will earn you bounty stakes for our DNN Token.
