- How To Stand Out In An Era Of Fake News Stories Underlined
- How To Stand Out In An Era Of Fake News Stories 2017
- How To Stand Out In An Era Of Fake News Stories Today
- How To Stand Out In An Era Of Fake News Stories Archive
In July, the website Snopes published a piece fact-checking a story posted on The Babylon Bee, a popular satirical news site with a conservative bent.
Conservative columnist David French criticized Snopes for debunking what was, in his view, “obvious satire. Obvious.” A few days later, Fox News ran a segment featuring The Bee’s incredulous CEO.
But does everyone recognize satire as readily as French seems to?
Our team of communication researchers has spent years studying misinformation, satire and social media. Over the last several months, we’ve surveyed Americans’ beliefs about dozens of high-profile political issues. We identified news stories – both true and false – that were being shared widely on social media.
We discovered that many of the false stories weren’t the kind that were trying to intentionally deceive their readers; they actually came from satirical sites, and many people seemed to believe them.
Fool me once
Two pieces of disinformation stand out from. Finding its way into major news outlets, the mouths of government MPs, and across the globe to Donald Trump Jr and prominent right-wing conspiracy. Aiming to tackle the dissemination of false news stories, GoCompare has also included top tips to help people identify fake news stories. This is after Massachusetts Institute of Technology found that fake news stories were 70% more likely to be retweeted on Twitter compared to genuine stories.
People have long mistaken satire for real news.
On his popular satirical news show “The Colbert Report,” comedian Stephen Colbert assumed the character of a conservative cable news pundit. However, researchers found that conservatives regularly misinterpreted Colbert’s performance to be a sincere expression of his political beliefs.
The Onion, a popular satirical news website, is misunderstood so often that there’s a large online community dedicated to ridiculing those who have been fooled.
But now more than ever, Americans are worried about their ability to distinguish between what’s true and what isn’t and think made-up news is a significant problem facing the country.
Sometimes satire is easy to spot, like when The Babylon Bee reported that President Donald Trump had appointed Joe Biden to head up the Transportation Security Administration based on “Biden’s skill getting inappropriately close to people and making unwanted physical advances.” But other headlines are more difficult to assess.
For example, the claim that John Bolton described an attack on two Saudi oil tankers as “an attack on all Americans” might sound plausible until you’re told that the story appeared in The Onion.
The truth is, understanding online political satire isn’t easy. Many satirical websites mimic the tone and appearance of news sites. You have to be familiar with the political issue being satirized. You have to understand what normal political rhetoric looks like, and you have to recognize exaggeration. Otherwise, it’s pretty easy to mistake a satirical message for a literal one.
Do you know it when you see it?
Our study on misinformation and social media lasted six months. Every two weeks, we identified 10 of the most shared fake political stories on social media, which included satirical stories. Others were fake news reports meant to deliberately mislead readers.
We then asked a representative group of over 800 Americans to tell us if they believed claims based on those trending stories. By the end of the study, we had measured respondents’ beliefs about 120 widely shared falsehoods.
Satirical articles like those found on The Babylon Bee frequently showed up in our survey. In fact, stories published by The Bee were among the most shared factually inaccurate content in almost every survey we conducted. On one survey, The Babylon Bee had articles relating to five different falsehoods.
For each claim, we asked people to tell us whether it was true or false and how confident they were in their belief. Then we computed the proportion of Democrats and of Republicans who described these statements as “definitely true.”
If we zero in on The Babylon Bee, a few patterns stand out.
Members of both parties failed to recognize that The Babylon Bee is satire, but Republicans were considerably more likely to do so. Of the 23 falsehoods that came from The Bee, eight were confidently believed by at least 15% of Republican respondents. One of the most widely believed falsehoods was based on a series of made-up quotes attributed to Rep. Ilhan Omar. A satirical article that suggested that Sen. Bernie Sanders had criticized the billionaire who paid off Morehouse College graduates’ student debt was another falsehood that Republicans fell for.
Our surveys also featured nine falsehoods that emerged from The Onion. Here, Democrats were more often fooled, though they weren’t quite as credulous. Nonetheless, almost 1 in 8 Democrats was certain that White House counselor Kellyanne Conway had questioned the value of the rule of law.
It’s no surprise that, depending on the headline, satire might be more likely to deceive members of one political party over another. Individuals’ political worldviews consistently color their perceptions of facts. Still, Americans’ inability to agree on what is true and what is false is a problem for democracy.
Flagging satire
The larger question, though, is what we should do about this problem.
In other recent work, we compared the effectiveness of different ways of flagging inaccurate social media content.
We tested a couple of different methods. One involved including a warning that fact-checkers had determined the inaccuracy of a post. Another had a message indicating that the content was from a satirical site.
We found that labeling an article as “satire” was uniquely effective. Users were less likely to believe stories labeled as satire, were less likely to share them and saw the source as less credible. They also valued the warning.
Facebook tested this feature itself a few years ago, and Google News has started to label some satirical content.
This suggests that clearly labeling satirical content as satire can help social media users navigate a complex and sometimes confusing news environment.
Despite French’s criticism of Snopes for fact-checking The Babylon Bee, he ends his essay by noting that “Snopes can serve a useful purpose. And there’s a space for it to remind readers that satire is satire.”
On this point, we couldn’t agree more.
Editor’s note: This story has been updated to include a link providing additional details about the study’s methodology.
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Fake news stories are a searingly hot topic right now. Some label it propaganda, others prefer to simply term the phenomenon “lies”. Whatever your perspective, there’s no denying that some of the content coming out of the fake news rumour mill is downright laughable.
What is fake news?
Fake news is type of information that consists of deliberate misinformation spread via traditional or online media. Fabricated information is the normal, which has sensational headline to mislead the reader.
The questionable media trend may be affecting everything from politics to social perception. Sometimes fake news veers so far away from reality that it becomes just plain ridiculous.
The List of Top 10 Fake News Stories
Here are 10 of the most preposterous fake news stories we’ve come across in the last six months. Do you have any to add to the list?
1. Planet Nibiru is headed straight for Earth
Sound the alarms and start digging your bunkers, everybody. Planet Nibiru (also known as Planet X and Planet Nine) ‘was’ to be on a direct collision course with Earth all the way back in March 2016. It must be true because NASA said so – apparently.
Except they didn’t and it isn’t. In fact there isn’t even conclusive proof that a “ninth planet” exists. Forget about Pluto, it’s a dwarf planet – okay? Let alone that a planet will smash Earth into smithereens or even bast us with big asteroids across the universe. You can now stop frantically stockpiling the tin of beans – unless you buy News4’s hype.
2. Hillary Clinton believes in the “Nibiru apocalypse”
A WikiLeak’s hack of former US presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton’s emails triggered some pretty hysterical fake news stories. This was back in October 2016, including the “fact” that Ms Clinton herself believed in the imminent “Planet X apocalypse”. You don’t have to be a NASA rocket scientist to know that’s total bunkum.
3. Pope Francis endorsed President Trump
The 2016 US Presidential election was a hotbed of fake stories, slamming and glorifying both contentious candidates. During the race, the (now defunct) fake news website WTOE News published a report. Apparently, in that report Pope Francis had broken with centuries of papal tradition. He endorsed a US Presidential candidate. – Mr Donald Trump.
Of course the Holy See said no such thing. After the fake news report went viral, reputable news source Reuters reported the Pope as saying: “I never say a word about electoral campaigns“.
4. Lottery-winning woman arrested for relieving herself on her boss’s desk
Fake news site The Valley Report claimed a 41year-old woman had been arrested for defecating on her boss’s desk. Also that happened after winning the lottery! The story went viral, spawning millions of shares on social media and lots of coverage from other, gullible news outlets. The whole thing, of course, was a fake. You only need to read the (frankly yucky) Valley Report original to realise that.
5. France bans work emails after 6pm
Some fake stories contain a kernel of truth. Although France did recently implement a “right to disconnect” law, the nation absolutely has not banned work emails after 6pm. Interestingly, this fake news story has surfaced more than once, first appearing back in 2014. Mon dieu.
6. ISIS set the Eiffel Tower on fire
A surprising amount of fake news came out of France in 2016. One reported that the iconic Eiffel Tower was on fire. In fact, a nearby fireworks truck accidentally caught fire close to the tower. This caused the monument to be engulfed in smoke. The facts didn’t stop many purveyors of fake news jumping on the images and footage. They hyped the situation with groundless terrorist attack claims.
7. Woman murders roommate for sending too many Candy Crush requests
How To Stand Out In An Era Of Fake News Stories Underlined
Here’s even more silliness from daft fake news purveyors The Valley Report. This extremely widely shared piece of fake news reported on the murder of a 19 year old Candy Crush addict. Her constant game requests drove her college roommate to bludgeon her to death with an industrial-sized bag of jellybeans. Clearly fake, but with 438,599 Facebook engagements, some readers bought it.
8. Saudi scientists promote women to “mammals”
How To Stand Out In An Era Of Fake News Stories 2017
Another obvious fake, but one widely shared by 290,599 Facebook users and news sites. The news that Saudi Arabian scientists had upgraded women to “mammals”. Apparently this represents a huge win for women’s rights in the notoriously unequal nation. This went viral right before International Women’s Day in 2016.
Supposed Amnesty International spokeswoman Jillian Birch claimed. “From now on, women will be considered as members of the mammal class, whereas before women shared the legal status of an object, similar to that of a home appliance”.
How To Stand Out In An Era Of Fake News Stories Today
9. Harambe won thousands of votes in the US election
The late gorilla Harambe was widely reported to have accrued 11,000 write in votes in the 2016 presidential election. This was a number which many claimed could have tipped the scales in Clinton’s favour. In fact, this story was entirely fake and thousands of votes were not given to a dead gorilla after all.
10. Hillary Clinton is a cannibal
Links to performance artist Marina Abramovic spawned a completely ridiculous torrent of conspiracy theories. In addition, there were false stories relating to the politician’s private life. From the ludicrous Pizzagate conspiracy, to claims of cannibalism and even that Hillary’s bout of ill health was the result of Kuru (a disease acquired by consuming human flesh). The whole episode was one of the most ridiculous fake news chapters in the whole presidential race.
Escaping fakery: how to avoid fake news?
At its best, fake news is entertaining but potentially misleading. At its worst, false news is downright dangerous. Its effects can be problematic for digital brands.
You may run a social media campaign and want to interact with breaking news. Or you simply want to share something your target markets will find interesting. You’ll always need to ensure you’re not disseminating false information. It’s important if you want to protect your business’s credibility.
Quick tips that will help you identify and avoid fake news
- Try some tools to flag fake news sites
There are a few Chrome extensions designed to flag up fake news as you browse. They can alert you if the post you’re reading is a bunch of balderdash. Try B.S. Detector, Media Bias/Fact Check or This Is Fake.
- Know your sources
Not all false news originates from established fake news sources. Being able to identify common creators will help you tell fact from fiction. This list of common fake news sites is very handy.
- Be “source sceptical”
If you’ve never heard of a news source before, be sceptical. Do your research on the site and the story before re-posting anything it has shared. Tell tale signs like unusual domains (i.e. “.co.com”) can indicate a site isn’t legitimate, though many fake news sites look and feel very respectable – so exercise caution!
How To Stand Out In An Era Of Fake News Stories Archive
Our social media aggregator tool is fantastic for making the great content available to any of your digital marketing channels. In fact it ranges from putting positive tweets from consumers in the spotlight, to showcasing an Instagram post featuring your product. We know how important sharing good news is. But don’t get fooled into publishing something that’s not real… Our AI moderation tools are amazing. But to spot a fake it takes a sharp pair of eyes and healthy dose of scepticism!
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