Debunking fake news when the line between truth and lie is blurred
Living in the ‘post-truth era’, has added quite some new words to our vocabulary about truth, falsehood and anything in between: half-truth, post-truth, alternative fact, fake news, accidental slip, deliberate lie, fact resistance and ‘faktaresistens’ –which will be explained later-. Whilst the line between the truth and falsehood becomes more and more blurred, everyone gets their own version of what is true and what is not. It’s quite surprising to see how people can have their version of the truth on anything from politics to U.S. moon landing mission, from 9/11 to global warming. While the truth needs to fight against its ‘other versions’, it is also slower than the lies. As the famous saying goes:
“A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth puts on its boots.”
Even the citation of this quote requires in-depth research because there isn’t any source that states who said this exactly at first place. The quote, which dates back to the 18th century, has been changed and credited to many different people from Winston Churchill to Mark Twain.
Lies are faster and more contagious than the truth
Whilst ‘fake news’ has an increasing effect on the political, economic and the social life, ‘fact-checking’ has become an inevitable business to spot and keep the misinformation contained and verify the reports from all around the world. The number of fact-checking outlets has risen to 188 in more than 60 countries, according to a recent survey by the Duke Reporters’ Lab. Facebook, as one of the platforms where misinformation and false claims circulate the most, has quadrupled its fact-checking partners over the past year, which makes 52 fact-checking sites in 33 countries worldwide. Meanwhile, YouTube has improved its services in India, with a fact-checking tool at the top of search results, in order to contribute to a surge of new outlets in the country.
But before fighting against misinformation, the question here is, how fast and contagious fake news is? The reach and the circulation speed of ‘fake news’ has been subject to many studies. And a recent one shows that in Twitter, false news reach more people than the truth; the top 1% of false news cascades diffused to between 1000 and 100,000 people, whereas the truth rarely diffused to more than 1000 people. The same study also points out that falsity also circulates faster than the truth: fake news stories are 70% more likely to be retweeted than the true ones.
“False news reach more people than the truth whilst fake news stories are 70% more likely to be retweeted than the true ones.”
Apparently, very few people are exempt from being exposed to the ‘fake news’ as the oversaturation of misinformation on internet, while even the content of conventional and prominent media is subject to suspicion. A recent Ipsos survey presents fake news as ‘a global epidemic with a widespread impact’. The survey shows that the vast majority of internet users (86%) in 25 countries, say that they have been exposed to fake news, among them nearly nine in ten admit to having fallen victim to fake news and believed it was real, at least once. Social media is the most significant source of misinformation, whilst Facebook takes the first place, whereas many as two-thirds (67%) report encountering fake news. And as a part of conventional media, television is also reported as another common source of fake news (51%).
Blurred lines between truth and falsity: How absurd the reality can become?
A critical factor makes us more vulnerable against spotting fake news is the blurred lines between truth and falsity, especially in politics. We live in a unique era, by witnessing clumsy politicians and their awkward actions, which makes us confused what is really happened, what is not. The very recent example for this is the letter written by U.S. President Donald Trump to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. When the letter was released to media, many people, including White House correspondents, couldn’t believe it was real, until White House confirmed its authenticity, because of its level of writing and choice of words. It was written in a very unprecedented manner, never seen before in any official letter, signed by a president. ‘Comically absurd, unprofessional, mentally immature, adolescent quality’ were among the words, chosen by the Twitter users to describe the letter. When the reality is this much ‘absurd’, there’s no room for parody accounts or websites to make some fun of the politics, whilst when a head of state does this instead of a satire writer, it’s more tragicomic.
Emotions over reality
As the saying goes, “the heart wants what it wants.” I think we can adapt this saying to the today’s world, where the only aim to consuming news for many people to search for verification for their beliefs and the political camps they support: The audience believes what they want to believe. Therefore, it looks like fake news is not ‘that bad’ for some; in addition, people prefer to believe in them more than the reality. According to a Washington Post blog, which counts inaccurate or deceptive declarations Trump has done (yes there’s a special counter for that), in 993 days of his presidency (until October 9, 2019), Trump has made 13,435 false or misleading claims. This makes roughly 13 such claims a day. But despite these numbers, Trump’s approval raiting is still 39%, whilst his predecessor Barack Obama, who is seen more popular than him in general sense, had 41 pct on October 2011, when it was his third year in White House as well. While for some, this dubious background is more than enough for Trump to be impeached, in his political base he has succeded to keep the support and looks like any solid proof agains his false claims doesn’t convince them otherwise. What is the reason behind this?
Despite making 13,435 false or misleading claims in 993 days of his presidency, Trump’s approval raiting seems like not that much affected from these claims.
Humans are emotional and ‘fact-resistant’
President Trump’s aggressive and emotional rhetoric is seen as a catalyser for to keep and increase the support from his voters. The studies also support this point: Igniting some certain emotions can win people over, more than just presenting the facts or being trustworthy. With his insistence on false claims, making crazy statements and promises, Trump is seen relatable to average Americans and being the voice of many, who has been regarded as radical or off limits. Political theorist Jason Brennan explain this phonemenon as:
“Saying stupid things to would-be voters is a very smart thing to do, while most voters are poorly informed, passionate, biased, overconfident, and tribalistic.”
Emotions can be much stronger than the facts; this can be called as ‘fact-resistance’, even the researchers often encounter. Researcher Heléne Lööw says, “Facts make no difference. Researchers are dismissed as being cheated or paid off by some foreign power,” and adds: “We live in the age of emotions.”
As a very creative nation to find new words for the new situations we face, Swedish people call this kind of people as ‘faktaresistens’: people who doesn’t allow themselves to be influenced by information that goes against their own opinion, which is based on something else. It may be a conspiracy theory, political idea or other ideological notions.
Another research suggests that misinformed people rarely change their minds when presented with the facts, in opposite they often become even more attached to their beliefs. This explains why some hardliner Trump supporters, climate change deniers and flat-earth believers can get defensive and in rejection, while being encountered the facts, which are opposite to their beliefs.
The Twitter research that we cited in the begining also underlines a ‘human effect’ under the popularity of fake news. The study found that humans, not robots (like twitter bots) are more likely to spread fake news and it might be linked to human nature. False stories inspired fear, disgust, and surprise and seen more novel than accurate news. So, from now on, maybe we should think twice before blaming the Twitter bots or Facebook ads, for the highly circulated misinformation or misleading content.
What is the solution to outperform and outreach fake news?
Until now, we understand that facts alone are not enough to reach a broad audience and convince them, while many of them show resistance to facts against their beliefs. In my previous Medium article, I’ve mentioned about another study, which shows that ‘more positive or more negative content tends to be more viral than a piece of content which doesn’t evoke any emotion’ as long as you generate these emotions is a high level.
For the content creators, it is essential to show the ‘human side’ of each story or study and target the audiences’ emotions, with pointing out the effect of this information in peoples’ daily lives. Here, experts suggest using more qualitative research results besides quantitative findings and hard facts. People can not relate a news article just with basic facts and statistical data and perhaps it can be too easy to dismiss. National issues like Brexit or global ones like climate change can be presented with what kind of struggle they can bring to people or how it already affects people, what are their real experiences? Saying ‘By the end of this century, what have been once-in-20-year extreme heat days (one-day events) are projected to occur every two or three years over most of the nation’, can be more impactful on the audience than a line of ‘global carbon emissions have raised 2.7% in 2017’. Sure, here it is not suggested that emotional parts of a story should replace real data or facts, but since our audience is human, we should bear in mind that people care more about a fact or a story, when they find it relatable and easily imagine its impact in their lives.
In order to access the audiences’ heart, show the ‘human side’ of each story and target the audiences’ emotions, with pointing out the effect of this information in peoples’ daily lives.
The curse of knowledge
People also pay more attention to the content which they can understand, which brings us to our second point: while presenting facts, no matter how complex your data or finding is, make it understandable and also catchy for everyone, write for the general audience. As by the Trump example, we can see that ‘the false claims camp’ can be so bold and attention-grabbing, as much as their content doesn’t require any specific level of literacy in any area. Here, the problem many journalists, researchers, experts and writers encounter is ‘the curse of knowledge’, which means if we know too much about our topic, we make assumptions about our audience’s knowledge and take shortcuts in our explanations or use a specific jargon.
Another aspect of this problem is that if we learn by relying on data and detail, then we tend to provide data and detail when we explain. As a journalist, I’ve seen many colleagues who have impeccable experience and background in a specific area and do in-depth research before hitting the keyboard, but they feel disappointed when seeing the low online stats of their article. As content creators, we can be so into our subject, and so excited to present this to the public.
But unless we write for area-specific experts, we should take a ‘audience-centric’ approach and think why this information is important for our audience and how it can be explained by the easiest way possible.
For further reading on this, here the more detailed ways of simplifying the content can be found.
Visualization of the information by infographics, charts, maps, or diagrams can also serve the aim of creating impactful, comprehensible and concise content while presenting facts. This works best with data which includes lots of numeric information. All these tips can also make your content more memorable and sharable, in order to outreach the fake news before they impact a wider audience.
A research comes with additional concrete suggestions while debunking fake news, as follows: when attempting to debunk a false narrative avoid repeating the original falsehood in detail and save the details for the truth by correcting misinformation with new, detailed information and provide specific reasons why it is mistaken. Lastly, debunk misinformation in such a way that encourages counterarguments by inducing “a state of healthy skepticism”.
What can audience do: Home-made remedies for fake news
Debunking fake news or verifying sources is not just for the content creators. Living in the ‘post-truth’ era requires a certain level of conventional and digital media literacy, if we don’t want to live in an artificial world, created for us to believe and think in some certain way. As the general audience, we might not have the sophisticated verification tools like the professionals in this area have, but a conscious Google search can go way beyond than you can imagine.
Since sometimes a photo or video can speak much louder than the words; using fake, misleading or totally irrelevant images to the context is one of the foremost ways of misinformation. In order to verify visuals and photos, you can use Google reverse image search. For this, choose the image you want to verify, then hit images.google.com. Once there, click the camera icon, then either copy and paste in the URL for your image or upload the image from your computer and hit ‘search by image’.
In the same manner, if you want to learn who is the source of a piece of information or a statement circulating online, a copy and paste of the selected text in a search engine can trace back to the source with a diligent research and evaluation among the search results. If the statement is attributed to a certain person or organization, checking the concerned social media accounts can be useful for further verification. You can also check for what the others tell about the website, social media account or the platform where you’ve seen that claim or the report you want to verify. While reading an article from a lesser-known website, check the web address. Does it look a bit weird? Does it have a proper ending like org.,com.,gov., or the country codes like uk.?
Search engines like Google, BING, Facebook and YouTube use a tool called ‘ClaimReview’, a tagging tool that logs fact-checks published around the world into one database and shows verifications or refutations in the search results, relevant to the search done by the user. For example, if you make a Google search for the claim of ‘the world is flat’, in your search results you can see by who this claim is made by (e.g., Flat Earth Association) and the refutation done by a fact-checking website which uses ClaimReview tool (e.g., Example.com)
To search for specific keywords from a particular date among Facebook posts whopostedwhat.com is a useful tool as well. On Facebook or Twitter, before reposting something, check the profile that shared the post. What is the profile photo? Does the owner want to disguise himself without giving a proper picture or name? What kind of posts has this account been sharing? Do they look like having an agenda by sharing the same kind of messages all the time?
In addition, there are many blogs and websites, specialized for fact-checking from prominent media outlets like AFP, AP, CNN and Washington Post besides the independent ones like Snopes, FactCheck.org, Quote Investigator. If Trump is your particular interest, there is a counter just for tracking Trump’s false claims or misinformation.
Question with your common sense
In the end, the most important thing is to use your common sense, by leaving behind your prejudgements. Question everything you see on digital and traditional media. The source can have an agenda to mislead you or they can be totally ignorant of their false claims. Whilst internet can make you overexposed to the fake news; it can be the sole source for you to verify dubious information and find the truth. In this internet era, information isn’t exclusive anymore for a group of journalists, politicians or experts. If you have some certain level of media literacy and a research spirit, internet can be your best friend in your sacred quest to reach the truth, instead of your misleading enemy.
