About populism, fake news and Facebook
A lot of media critics denounce journalism for more and more being about opinions and less about what it ought to be: fair, balanced and impartial reporting. Creators of fake news are a striking example of how easy it is for people to make money without taking into account the most basic function of journalism: checking facts. This Washington Post article lively illustrates a work day of Paris and Ben, two US-Americans who got rich simply by feeding the people what they want to have. This is basically everything which ridicules Hillary and hails Trump — regardless of whether it is true or not. Actually, most of the stuff they put online is not based on any facts but only an invention of Paris’ or Ben’s fantasy. Even though having some minor compunctions, they ponder over launching a left-wing news website simply due to material interests.
Some people go as far as blaming Facebook for helping tip the election in Trump’s favour by wittingly allowing fake news to spread. Mark Zuckerberg — believing in people and assuming that they understand what is important in their lives and that they can express those views — rejects that approach by clarifying that Facebook is no arbiter of truth. Still, he acknowledges the company should be doing more to stop misinformation online; even warning labels for unverified content are said to be introduced. However, wouldn’t that be a sad proof of people’s lack of judgement if they really needed labels to differentiate between facts and lies?
Taking a look at the Netherlands, we can witness another example of failed journalism — one which seems to be even more profound than fake news. The right-wing news outlet GeenStijl calls itself anarchist and claims it is giving voice to a segment of the Dutch population ignored by mainstream media. The outlet justifies their sexist, racist, anti-immigrant policy by arguing that a lot of people — those disliking the political correctness of other sources — do agree with their views. Those people seem to favour what also American Trump supporters and German AfD voters like about the populists: They dare to say what people consider to be ‘‘the truth’’. It is alarming that populist language coined by GeenStijl is spreading across the country and that we experience a normalization of things that were morally unacceptable in the past. Phenomena like that of GeenStijl is a result of media companies regarding any regulation as a limitation of the freedom of speech and thus everybody being able to say anything.
