Tackling Fake News
by Damon Huss
Have you ever seen a news headline that just seemed too incredible to be true? Perhaps it was satire, which is comedy mixed with social commentary. An example would be “Trump’s Fourth of July Parade to Include Flyover by Russian Air Force.” Clearly untrue, it was written by satirist Andy Borowitz in 2019 for The New Yorker magazine.
But what about this headline: “Parkland First Responder: I Was Told to Stand Down”? If true, it would mean an emergency medical responder was ordered not to try to save victims’ lives at the scene of a mass shooting. It would be shocking and not at all funny to think that this was true. In fact, it is not true. The story was produced by the fake-news website InfoWars, whose founder routinely claims that mass shootings are hoaxes designed to help gun-control advocates.
Fake-news stories are made to look like legitimate news stories. The difference is that fake news is intentionally fabricated news. Its apparent purpose is to misinform or mislead readers, either for political or financial gain. During the 2016 presidential election season, fake news was widely shared on social media, especially on Facebook and Twitter.
Social media has grown over the past several years and has completely altered how most Americans get their news and information. Users share news and information directly with each other with no fact-checking in between. Fake-news creators have found this set up to be perfect for marketing their fake-news products.
Economics professors from New York University and Stanford University investigated the fake news of 2016. Their research uncovered startling numbers. Users shared fake-news articles 38 million times. From those shares, users clicked on links to fake-news headlines 760 million times. These stories were “heavily tilted” toward then-candidate Donald Trump, with 115 pro-Trump fake-news stories being shared 30 million times. On the other side, 41 pro-Clinton fake stories were shared 7.6 million times. As we know, Donald Trump won the election.
After the election, many social-media users demanded that tech companies take action to prevent the wide circulation of fake-news stories. In response, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg announced the company would make it easier for users to report and flag fake stories. Additionally, unpaid third-party organizations indicated they were going to start fact-checking articles flagged by users.
Google announced that it would ban fake-news sites from using Google’s advertising services. Fake-news writer Paul Horner, for example, said he can make up to $10,000 a month on his website through Google AdSense. If Google and Facebook curtail fake news, he said that he would simply work under different names and sites. “Nobody fact-checks anything anymore,” Horner said.
Some internet users have demanded that social-media platforms simply ban fake news. Many users, however, oppose bans on posting content as a form of censorship. In fact, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram (which Facebook owns), and other platforms do shut down accounts they determine to have violated terms of use. For example, they ban pages run by hate groups, like neo-Nazis. In 2019, Facebook banned accounts by right-wing extremists Alex Jones of InfoWars, Louis Farrakhan of the Nation of Islam, and others that the platform deemed to be dangerous.
Also in 2019, Facebook banned 265 accounts run by Archimedes Group, a company that Facebook found was targeting political discourse in countries in Africa, Latin America, and Southeast Asia through the spreading of fake-news stories. The company tells its clients it can “change reality according to our client’s wishes.” Facebook cited the company for the violation of “coordinated inauthentic behavior.”
Television and radio stations must have broadcast licenses to operate and must follow regulations set by the Federal Communications Commission. For companies like Facebook and Twitter, however, there currently is no such regulation or licensing. Accuracy and liability for what is posted rest with the users. Readers must be aware of the risks and assess the reliability of information for themselves.
First Amendment Protections & Libel Risk
The First Amendment protects the right to free speech. Any law enacted to stop people from publishing or spreading fake news could trigger a challenge that the law infringes on First Amendment free-speech rights. We may have to accept a certain amount of false speech in order to allow true speech to also be published. But there are limits.
Neither newspapers nor television and radio stations may commit defamation, which is the use of false statements that tend to harm a person’s reputation or make that person a victim of public ridicule or harm. In print (including publishing on the internet and social media), defamation is called libel. Like newspapers, a fake-news publisher could face a civil lawsuit for libel.
Under the First Amendment, news sources are allowed in certain specific circumstances to publish false stories. In 1964, the Supreme Court ruled in New York Times Company v. Sullivan that publication of false stories without actual malice is protected speech (in other words does not create liability). Actual malice means the publisher knows the story is false or has reckless disregard for its truth or falsity. Monetary damages may be awarded where actual malice is involved.
The effectiveness of any law against fake news also faces practical challenges. Many fake-news articles are published on websites in other countries. For example, the Archimedes Group described above is based in Israel. Another website in Macedonia published an article in early November 2016 claiming Hillary Clinton would be indicted on charges connected to her use of a private email server when she was secretary of state. No such indictment was actually going to happen, but a U.S. law against fake news would not have restricted a website in Macedonia.
In the past, editors and other professionals generally curated accurate information delivered to the public. They still do on credible news websites and in traditional print journalism. But not all websites and social-media platforms similarly vet information. In fact, many fake-news websites are deliberately designed to look like legitimate news websites so as to attract readership. It is left to each of us to evaluate whether or not information online is reliable.
As an online user, you can strengthen your digital citizenship with a few simple tools. One is to consult reliable fact-checking websites, like snopes.com or factcheck.org. Another is to balance your news intake: Seek out news about an event from a variety of sources, including those that may have a different political slant than your own. News reporting may not be neutral (having no opinion whatsoever). But reporters can still report facts as facts in as objective a manner as possible.
Questions for Discussion
- How does fake news spread on social media so quickly?
- What are the potential drawbacks of trying to pass laws against fake news?
This article was originally published as part of Constitutional Rights Foundation’s The Challenge of Democracy, a series of texts and lesson plans made possible by a generous grant from the W.M. Keck Foundation. Click here to access these materials on the themes of Governance, Diversity, Violence, and Information.
