The age of disinformation?
Fake news has been increasing in the Philippines and the world these past few months, and have caused alarm and undeserved consequences. Institutions, governments, and even countries have been trying to counter and neutralize disinformation with some successes and failures, and everyone has acknowledged these problems. In the Philippines, the Secretary of Justice issued a statement in reaction to fake news and had to apologize in a matter of days. The presidential information office has also to apologize for publishing a false picture on a press release.
In the U.S., there has been a number of fake news since their presidential elections in 2016 and this continues now with the controversies that have engulfed President Trump. It seems that Russia has been feeding and manipulating some news to favor their interests. France and some eastern European countries have also accused Russia of doing the same thing in the run up to their elections. Sweden also accused Russia of disinformation in the internet relating to its entry into the NATO. Last week, Qatar also accused Russia of hacking their information bureau and inserting damaging information that led five neighboring Arab countries to cut diplomatic ties with Qatar and even sever relations. The effects of fake news and disinformation are enormous and horrendous and could lead to unnecessary consequences and conflicts.
Fake news, strictly speaking, refers to information disguised as news through the use of a fake website, news media or any information office. It has become more prevalent with the advent of the internet as the cost of creating a fake media organization became cheap or even free. Fake news usually starts in social media and then spills over to the main media. I have equated fake news with disinformation as their objectives are the same, but with fake news trying to reach a wider audience. The objectives of fake news and disinformation are to promote the purveyor's agenda; to influence events and actions, for financial gains, or to get into or stay in power. Political power is the main driver and the financial interests are in support of the political goal.
Disinformation has been in existence from the time people learned how to communicate with each other. It was obviously less when there were fewer people, since stories were easily verifiable from the few sources; but as the population grew and people became farther from each other, disinformation also increased. A number of Jews and supposed witches were burned or killed due to unverified rumors in the 15th century. In WWI and WWII fake news from all sides were abundant to promote their side of the war, with Hitler's Information Minister Goebbels the most famous proponent of Nazi propaganda. Ironically, the advent of the printing press and other news media also gave rise to disinformation and fake news. And this only abated when the media themselves imposed guidelines and discipline in news gathering and reporting, so that by the 20th century mostly only verifiable news got into the news media.
The entry of electronic media or the internet is the new factor that has made fake news proliferate again, because of the overabundance of information, the speed of communication, and the loosening of ownership of the media channels. There is software that compiles and sorts out all the news available in the net and organizes them into concise news, and without verifying if these are legitimate news. To counter this epidemic of fake news, the legitimate news organizations have made the moves to shut down fake news websites and expose the fake news sources and fake news itself. These are the right moves, and with the news public acting also more responsible and not patronizing and believing fake news websites, fake news and disinformation will abate and be marginalized.
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