Chapter 1: History of Fake News

By Dr Fadi Safieddine

Fake news has become a buzzword in recent years, and as such has been defined, labelled, and
classified in a variety of ways. This chapter introduces the term Fake News starting with the general
perceptions people have about the news that can be labelled as fake. Many of the examples presented
here will help demonstrate that the sophisticated techniques of faking news. The chapter will present
the different types of news that have been labelled as fake news and how they differ from each other.
Thus, establishing that beyond its non-factual nature or lack of veracity, fake news is located through
a platform economy of data and content transaction, as enabled through social media and its data
capitalism. A review of the literature helps identify a variety of definitions of fake news. Followed by
an analysis which seeks to build a more encompassing definition. One that accounts for the key
characteristics to distinguish fake news from other terms that have been conflated with fake news in
recent times such as post-truth, propaganda, alt-truth, satire, parody and more. This chapter identifies
fake news as a phenomenon in which news or narratives that have been manufactured to deliberately
deceive a targeted audience where it is designed to be transacted through a networked economy
which disseminates through the trust and the attendant moral or psychological disposition of that
network. Critically, this chapter presents tools to help readers better distinguish and correctly label
fake news. Finally, a timeline of fake news is presented for readers to appreciate how fake news
evolved through a myriad of forms; word of mouth, printed material, radio, TV and film, and digital
media. The chapter aims to provide a snapshot of key and significant points of references where fake
news has had an impact in the lead-up and well into the configuration of the social media era.

Overview:
The term fake news can mean many things to different people. Recently, and following the
unanticipated results of several elections and referendums, the topic of fake news started getting
more attention. One can argue that fake news has become synonymous with election meddling
(Berghel, 2017). While others argue fake news has a long history that extends far back centuries but
assuming a different manifestation in the social media age.

The reason fake news continues to attract added attention is the concern that it's being used and
refined as a political weapon of choice (Berghel, 2017). The concerns centre by the speed of
dissemination and impact it can have. In fact, the speed of its dissemination is exponential compared
to how factual news travels. In a study conducted by Vosoughi, Roy, & Aral (2018), they discovered
that predominantly politically motivated fake news is re-shared by more people and expanded
significantly faster than factual news. The problem of combatting fake news is further complicated
with the fact by the time the rebuke to the fake news is generated; the damage would have already
been done. Baum and Lazer (2017) reported in the Los Angeles Times that “A long-standing body of
research shows that people are more likely to attend to and later recall a sensational or negative
headline, even if a fact checker flags it as a suspect.”

Of course, there is a psychological side to the success of fake news. If the information fits with people’s
prior beliefs, then it is going to be very hard to change it by simply correcting the misinformation
(Rubin, Chen, and Conroy, 2015). There is also a rewarding aspect of being part of the fake news
phenomena. Social networks provide incentives for people sharing fake news “an act rewarded by
social media platforms by metrics such as attention, popularity and visibility” (Mejias, 2017). For
creators of fake news, there are added financial rewards from monetising it as it attracts a large
number of visitors linked to higher advertising returns. Finally, the ideologists and agents involved in
covert operations care little about the validity of the content and more on the strength of the intended
outcomes. These ideologists operators would have their moral compass focused on the belief that the
ends justify the means and less influenced by facts.

And while much of the literature has focused on fake political news, it should be mentioned that fake
news has covered topics such as vaccination, health, financial dealings, history, science, religion, local
affairs, celebrity gossips, and more (Reilly, 2017).

Examples of Fake News:

Before exploring the different definitions of fake news, this section presents a variety of cases and
incidents that researchers and journalists have described as fake news. Reading through these, allows
one to discern how diverse these examples are and clear the challenge in finding one clear definition
for fake news.

o Alternative-Truth: Alternative-truth are assertions tend to be statements that are

made with little or no evidence to back them up. For example: “Ted Cruz was an
anchor baby,”›› “Barack Obama wasn’t born in the US,”›› “The 2017 inaugural crowd
was the largest in history,” ›› “We need guns in schools to prevent grizzly attacks,” ››
“There’s no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction,” and
many more statements that are best described as opinion based facts. These make
more sense as an ideological statement meant to appeal to a specific base. Attempts
to reconcile these statements with reality would not likely bear fruit in changing
ideologist views. “For ideologues, the meanings of the words are their effects on the
base.” (Berghel, 2017)
o Hoax (fake) websites: Hoax websites are online sites that claim to be factual but are
forgeries. Burkhardt (2017) gives several examples of fake websites. For example,
DHMO is a parody website that claims to uncover hazardous material called DHMO.
DHMO actually stands for H2O – otherwise water – is described on the website as a
breakthrough chemical compound that has such amazing properties as to speed up
corrosion and causes suffocation. Another example is a paper titled: Feline Reactions
to Bearded Men. It is a made-up scientific article that would appear at first instance
as a genuine article about the reaction of cats to human beards. The paper has an
abstract, finding, methodology, and event references. The whole article is made up
and has citations to fictional characters such as Dr Seuss.
o Social Media: Using online social networks as a means of communications and the
sharing of news. Responding to false reports of Israeli nuclear threat to Pakistan, the
Pakistan’s defence minister Khawaja Muhammad Asif, tweeted on December 23,
2016, an ominous response to Israel stating “Israeli def[endnce] min[ister] threatens
nuclear retaliation presuming Pak[istan] role in Syria against Daesh[ISIS], Israel forgets
Pakistan is a Nuclear state too,” (Goldman, 2016).
o Sharing Photos: Where visual manipulation is added to a post, it has a high impact in
giving credibility to a fake story. For example, a touching photo shared in the
aftermath of the Nepal earthquake goes viral on social media. The picture shows a
boy and girl holding each other, with a moving caption “Two & a half-year-old sister
being protected by her four-year-old brother in Nepal,”(Pham, 2015). The image was
not from Nepal earthquake 2015 but Vietnam 2007. It has been reused several times,
including Burmese orphans and victims of Syria’s civil war.
 Figure 1.1: Nepal Earthquake Victims (fake)
o Targetted fake news: The impact of fake news is amplified when combined with
targeting user profiling, as explained by Christopher Wylie; the Cambridge Analytica’s
analyst turned whistleblower (Hern, 2018). For example, in the 2016 US presidential
elections, the topic of gay marriage had divided the opinion of the US electorates.
Profiling Facebook users, Donald Trump campaign sent targeted messages depending
on people’s views on topics of LGBTQ, religion, immigration, and economy that are
tailored to each group. LGBTQ supporters and families received posts showing Donald
Trump carrying Rainbow flag with the writing LGBT for TRUMP (Guilford, 2016).
Whereas people with strong anti-gay marriage received messages that suggested
Donald Trump commitment to overturning the gay marriage decision1. Neither post
turned out to be factual (Lacapria, 2016). In reality, Donald Trump remained evasive
on this topic during the election.

Figure 1.2: Two somewhat contradictory social media posts from US election in 2016

1
[Link]
 o Mass media: There are instances where fake news goes viral and is shared by mass
media. According to McNair (2018), the first ever modern appearance of the word
‘fake news’ in the context of abusing social media news post is in an article published
by the Washington Post in 2014 profiling Paul Horner, a prolific hoaxer who infiltrated
mainstream news media with fake stories. At the time, “Horner’s greatest coup
remains a fake story he wrote during the government shutdown roughly a year ago.
In a ridiculous piece titled Obama uses own money to open Muslim museum amid the
government shutdown,”(Dewey, 2014). In that article, Horner claimed that Obama
used his own money to keep the federally funded Muslim cultural museum open in
Mississippi. Even though there is no museum of this kind in Mississippi, and the story
is completely fabricated, it was reported by some mainstream news channels as
factual.
o Nonpolitical news: Fake news is also reported to affect social media posts on nutrition
and health. Rowe and Alexander (2017) present claims of miracle cures in nearly every
subject from mental health to cancer. People who create these posts are not
necessarily the shadowy figures that some may assume. A fact-checking website
Snopes looked at an example of fake news posts claiming that sour honey can cure
cancer and that pharmaceutical companies, cooperating with Hillary Clinton, know
this and are hiding this fact from the public (Kasprak, 2017). While this is not unusual
to see in a fake news context, what is insightful is the response the website got from
Agora Inc, the company promoting this post: “We are extremely reticent to censure
our analysts and writers. Instead, we encourage them to speak boldly. And let readers
decide for themselves. Of course, we will be wrong often. And embarrassed
occasionally,” (Kasprak, 2017).
o News agencies: Are instances where individuals label news agencies as fake as oppose
to news reports. For example, Donald Trump had labelled news organisations rather
than news reports as fake news when they reported news he disliked, for example,
the suggestion he did not win the popular votes in 2016 and that he had a low turnout
at his inauguration. Gelfert (2018) explains that there is a threat in which influencers
would use the term fake news to crush dissent. Therefore, it is incorrect to use of the
term fake news as the term should not be misused as a form of tactical slandering of
opponents.

Of course, these are just a sample of what academics and journalist have used in distinguishing fake
news. However, this sample sets the scene that readers appreciate in understanding the concept of
fake news.

Types of Fake News:

Another way to explore fake news is to look at the different types of fake news as reported in the
academic literature. Our review identified seven types of fake news as Satire News, Parody News,
Propaganda News, Manipulated Visual Content, Fabricated Content, Alternative Truth, and False
Connection.

- Satire News: is factual news presented using humour, irony, exaggeration, ridicule, and
mockery (Brodie, 2018). Satire news programmes typically use humour or exaggeration to
present viewers with news updates. Examples of TV Satire programmes are Saturday Night
Live in the USA, Les Guignols de l'info in France, and Have I Got News for You in the UK. Humour
could be considered a form of news as it provides a critique of news, including political,
economic, and social events. In principle, satire is based on a factual story. However, satire
 news should not be taken as factual or true. There are certain topics that are nearly impossible
to write in a truly satirical way without someone mistaking it to be a genuine article. One can
argue that when the news is being presented in a satirical way, it cannot be considered fake
news. On social media, a screenshot of a tweet created to appear as a genuine Donald J. Trump
tweet, poked fun suggesting the president tweeted on the day the Dow Jones dropped 1175
points: “If the Dow Joans ever falls more than 1000 “points” in a Single Day the sitting
president should be “loaded” into a very big cannon and Shot into the sun at TREMENDOUS
SPEED! No excuses!” (News Literacy Project, 2018). The author, a British blogger Shaun Usher,
did not think anyone would believe the tweet to be genuine, but the screenshot and Usher’s
tweet went viral. According to Brodie (2018), the challenges for satire stories happen when
these stories are shared out of context or no longer link to the original satire context. These
stories may contain some markers, but these could easily be lost or missed by the less
informed readers. In the case of the tweet, the markers included misspelling for Dow Jones
and link to the drop in the market.
One may ask, is satire fake news? The Onion news is a satirical digital newspaper that publishes
articles that are a mix of real and fictional but with satirical tone in a traditional news
organisation format. The power of this approach is to connect the story with current affairs.
According to the original editor of The Onion, Scott Dikkers, satire is not fake news. In
defending his newspaper, Dikkers said “It’s satire. It’s totally different from fake news, and it
bothers me when those fake news organizations are basically out there printing likes or
propaganda [but] label themselves satire,” (Hutchison, 2017) — insisting that the key
difference is the intentions. The editor maintains that The Onion does not intend to pass its
news are factual, and when that has happened, it would be accidental. Purcell (2017) agrees
insisting satire news adds an important perspective to the current news but is not intended
to be deceitful. In fact, one of their most successful news articles of The Onion to be passed
around as factual is the 1998 article titled 98 Homosexual-Recruitment Drive Nearing Goal.
The article was, in fact, a satire aimed at Westboro Baptist Church anti-LGBT campaign. The
problem is that the article was being circulated as proof of a homosexual agenda, which
prompted The Onion editors at the time to adjust the link of the article to direct the readers
to the site home page, so the story could be seen within context of satire it was meant to be
(Schillinger, 1999).
- Parody News: May also be referred to as hoax stories. Parody news tends to be stories that
are completely fabricated but intended as a joke with clear disclaimers and clues. Brunvand
(1963) defined parody as “jokes [that] defraud the listener into believing that he is hearing a
true narrative and then suddenly turn out to be all nonsense”. Parody, in effect, plays a
practical joke with the readers. There would be trickster(s) and target(s). The trickster engages
the target into playing without their knowledge or permission. Parody in media has been
around and recognised for a very long time. However, as it moved from print to digital, and
the same issues concerning contextualisation of satire and inability for readers to relate the
given news to its sources, means parody news could easily be turned into fake news. For
example, the case of the 1995 digital story titled Clinton Deploys Vowels to Bosnia and
published by The Onion (Onion, 1995), where someone copied the article and circulated by
email. It spread fast and wide, in that process lost its source with The Onion, until it was being
read as factual without contextualisation and attribution.
There are certain topics that some have argued cannot be used in the form of parody or satire
because people with the predisposition to believe the topic will likely to believe it as factual;
a phenomenon is called Poe’s Law (Brodie, 2018). For example, it is nearly impossible to write
a parody article on Creationist in such a way that no one mistakes it for the genuine article.
 This phenomenon seems to be particularly common in areas of belief when associated with
politics. In 2012, Iran’s Fars news agency reported with all seriousness The Onion report that
suggested rural white Americans would prefer to elect Iranian President Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad than Barak Obama as president of the United States (BBC News, 2012).
- Propaganda News: It is defined as news that has some elements of factual stripes, but are
deliberately false, twisted, or exaggerated to a point where it does not reflect reality (Reilly,
2017). In other words, propaganda refers to creating news stories with strong biases to an
entity. This entity could be a political party, public figure, organisation, government, or a
cause. Propagandists may fabricate facts, be selective with facts, and present opinionated
facts (Edgar and Sedgwick, 2002, pp. 313–14). Propaganda intends to deceive and mislead the
audience. Bakir and McStay, (2018) named propaganda news category of as Misleading
Content type of fake news where the variability of dishonestly focuses on what is not
presented or missing from the article. Example of misleading content drawn from a
hypothetical reporting of naming and shaming politicians for not voting on a motion but the
article is failing to mention that a number of these politicians were ill or unable to attend on
that day. In this context, Bakir and McStay talk about two types of propaganda: Overt
propaganda, as a more open and transparent form of propaganda like the ones done
historically by military and dictatorships with the intention being to influence public opinion.
For example, Dmitry Tulchinskiy, bureau chief of Russian state news agency Rossiya Segodnya
argued that “propaganda is the tendentious presentation of facts . . . It does not mean lying”
(Troianovski, 2014). The second type is Covert Propaganda, tends to present itself as factual
news, concealing its true intentions, importance, and source. For example, in the run-up to
the invasion of Iraq, CNN and New York Time are said to have unwittingly published false
information pushed by the U.S. military as part of a psychological operation (Love, 2007). Thus,
with covert propaganda, the reader is not aware that the purpose of this news post is to
influence them. These two types of propaganda could operate separately or together.
- Manipulated Visual Content: This category of fake news relates to when an image or video is
manipulated by either false content, contextualisation, or editing to be presented as factual
evidence to back a claim. There are several instances of this appearing on social media and is
popularity appeals to users who have less time to read and faster time to react. Potentially, a
large portion of fake news on social media could be attributed to manipulated visual content,
such as the case of a fake screenshot of Donald Trump tweet presented earlier. On some social
media platforms, such as Instagram and Snapchat, the only effective way to spread the news
is to incorporate visual content. Several approaches have been used in creating manipulated
visual content: news post may be presented as a screenshot that appears to be coming from
a genuine news article; a picture presented out of context, or dotted image. The term
Photoshopped, a derivative from Adobe Photoshop software that allowed image editing, is a
commonly used term to describe images that have been edited. This category, however,
extends the definition of manipulation of factual images to include videos created, edited, or
manipulated to present a false narrative as a way to use visual deception as added credibility
to a news story. This form has become common in social media fuelled by easy to use image
manipulation tools with changes ranging between simple to complex. For example, borrowing
an image from a different conflict with a fake story, adjusting changes to colour and removing
minor elements, to significant changes that involve removing or inserting humans or objects
to an image. The following are early examples of these manipulations:
 Figure 1.3. Fabricated image of Abraham Lincoln
In 1865, following the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, journalists could not find a heroic-
like photo of the 16th President of the USA. In figure 1.3, photographer Thomas Hicks used a
combination of other photos and imposed Abraham’s head to create a photo of the dead
president.

Figure 1.4. Dotted image of Joseph Stalin and Nikolai Yezhov

In the first photo shown in figure 1.4, the man on the right is Nikolai Yezhov. Nikolai was once
Joseph Stalin’s right hand and head of Russian secret service. When he fell out of favour with
the Soviet regime, images were edited to remove him and erase him from history. The photo
of Joseph Stalin continued to be used as a propaganda tool.
- Fabricated content: This is the case when the content is completely fabricated with the story
having no relation to reality in any sense of shape. The news post could be viewed as a piece
of fiction but is presented as factual news. Burkhardt (2017) called this category of fake news
Canards; where the news is intended as misinformation or misdirection and have sinister
motives. To distinguish it from parody news, fabricated content news would have no
indication whatsoever that this is fictional. Examples of completely fabricated content that
have been discussed already: Sour honey as medical news as a cancer cure and Obama using
his personal funds to keep a Muslim Museum open in Mississippi. Much has been said about
the intentions that drive individuals and organisations to create, manage, and promote such
content. This type of fake news will most definitely be central to the discussions throughout
this book.
- Alternative-Truth: The term is abbreviated as Alt-truth but has a close association with terms
such as Alternative-Post, Alternative Facts, Post-Truth and Post-Facts, and at least in some
circles, and before all these terms exploded online, Frankfurt (2009) called it bullshit (BS).
There are minor variations in how these terms differ. For example, Alt-Truths are described
as statements that present explanations with little evidence to their validity. Alt-facts, on the
other hand, is when “…an ideologue offers an account of the facts that have no basis in reality;
they are not false statements but rather alternative facts.” (Berghel, 2017, p.41). Post-truth is
a description of events that plays footloose with the truth. The commonality between these
 terms is that the description given to a scenario goes beyond the truth, rendering the truth
irrelevant. Given the little variations we have between these terms, this chapter will refer to
them as Alt-Truth.
The authors of Alt-Truths do not think what they are producing is any different approach to
what they consider a deceptive traditional media. In fact, the inventors may not see their
attempts at twist explanations different to how films, movies, plays, and other forms of arts
would get their audience to willingly suspect disbelief sufficiently for a meme or post to be
accepted as a fact.
This form of fake news is probably the most challenging of fake news. Alt-Truth is a mix of
threads of both truths and lies in a blend to provide semantic elasticity Frankfurt (2009). For
example, the case in the US of the so-called Death Tax, which really is inheritance tax. By giving
it a misleading name, politicians against the tax used mixture of facts and fabrications,
including suggesting it would be harmful to middle-class Americans. In reality, the tax does
not affect middle-income Americans and is meant to help them. In Alt-Truth, the facts are
irrelevant; the pitch that is mixed with biased views are much more important. It is more
based on emotions and less on fact and evidence. Examples of Alt-truth include claims
suggesting Donald’s Trump had one of the largest inaugurations in history, £350 Million a
week for the NHS upon the UK leaving the EU and Obama’s birthplace continues to be
challenged even when his birth certificate proves he was born in the US. The effectiveness of
these fake news is that the focus is on panoramic view rather than the particular view. While
most people would agree with the US Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, who said “Everyone
is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts”, the reality is that Alt-Truth supporters
take a different view where they believe everyone is entitled to their own facts as long as
these facts are in their interest.
- False Connection: is described by Bakir and McStay (2018) as news or post titles that do not
match their content. Traditionally, one would have associated these with selected tabloid
papers. With some tabloids, there is a tendency to exaggerate a claim. Sometimes tabloids
have been accused of inventing titles that are from thin air, and more fitting with the
fabricated content category. Some articles would have just enough truth to make them
somewhat believable and thus falling into the category of alt-truth. However, the most
common approach is to provide an eye-catching title that tends to be an exaggeration for key
facts. Sources and claims can be easily found to back any given claim, to add credibility to the
story and the connection. In March 2016, The Sun newspaper in the UK ran a headline that
said, “Queen Backs BREXIT”, a claim said to be linked to ‘two unnamed sources’. Later that
year, the Independent Press Standards Organisation (IPSO) deemed the title very misleading
and forced the newspaper to publish its findings (The Sun, 2016). Other forms of fake news
may be linked to false connection, including public relations posts where the title gives a false
impression that it is a news article. The article would be an advertisement, or a press release
intended to appear as independent reporting or news.

An appreciation of these seven fake news types should help the reader navigate the different
definitions of fake news and where some researches’ definition scopes varied based on their view of
the topic.

Definitions of Fake News:

To better understand the term fake news, there needs to be an agreement as to what one means by
the term news and the term fake. For example, the term news could be defined as recent accounts
that are of significant interest (Kershner, 2005), that may have an impact on people (Richardson,
2007), or even dramatic account of something unusual or different (Jamieson and Campbell, 1997).
Traditionally, news was associated as a product of journalism, a field that is expected to deliver
“independent, reliable, accurate, and comprehensive information,” (Kovach and Rosenstiel 2007,
p.11) and as such journalists are expected to be impartial, honest, independent, free, and self-
governed to provide this kind of service. As with journalistic power comes responsibility (Schudson,
2003). “That responsibility lies mostly on being subjective in judging which elements of the news are
included or excluded. Beyond journalism, the news is affected by external forces such as political
establishment, readers, and advertisers,” (Shoemaker and Reese, 2013). While journalists make the
news, this does not mean they make it fake. Fake is associated with forged, counterfeit, unauthentic,
imitation, deceitful, dishonest, misleading, fraudulent, to name few. In 2010, Abbasi et al. investigated
types of fake websites and categorised them into two: spoof sites that aim to imitate or copy similar
to existing websites but made somewhat clear of their intention; and concocted sites that have far
more sinister aim to appear as the legitimate entity for commercial or criminal gain. Another study
looked at fake consumers’ reviews websites that attempt to deceive users into the type of feedback
customers are providing where all the feedbacks are faked (Zhang et al. 2016, 457). Thus, one could
consider fake news in a wider context where the intention to mislead or misinform users (Wardle,
2017).

The same way one sees variations on how researchers view fake news, the review of the literature
suggested variations in fake news definitions. In total, three categories of fake news definitions have
been identified:

o Fake news as an Internet phenomenon:

The initial impression of fake news as an online problem may have been a reason why
some defined fake news as purely an Internet problem.
▪ Lawyers Klein & Joshua (2017) define fake news as “the online publication of
intentionally or knowingly false statements of fact.” (p.6) However, their
definition excludes satirical websites and posts, such as The Onion.
There is some merit in considering fake news as purely an online problem. Online and
social media has provided the dry conditions for the fire of fake news to spread
unheeded. The internet reduced the entry cost and barriers for individuals and
organisations to assume the role of journalists. It also allowed foreign covert
operations to take advantage of data mining and data analytics to create targeted
posting using troll armies. As shown later in this chapter in the timeline of fake news,
there was no time in human history that these tools were at the disposal of fake news
generators. It is, however, short-sighted to confine fake news as an online problem
only. While many have associated fake news with social media sharing of news, it is a
mistake to suggest it is exclusively the case. As Gelfert (2018) explains, a post that is
fake news on social media is suddenly not fake news if it is published in a newspaper
— as such, defining fake news as exclusively online or social media is incorrect.
o Fake news definitions as a benign problem:
In other words, researchers who believe fake news is part of the Internet. Thus, fake
news is defined as harmless, regardless of its intentions.
▪ Lazer et al. (2016) define fake news as fabricated information that mimics
news media content in form but not in organisational process or intent.
▪ Reilly (2017) describes fake news as media hoaxes. The authors suggest fake
news to be a mischief end of a broader project and probably aligned with
what others describe as satire and parody.
 ▪ “… popped up as shorthand for journalism that should not be taken seriously
because it was false, fabricated, or little better than fiction.” (McNair, 2018,
p.6).
▪ Secor and Walsh (2004) offer a succinct overview: “Something is made public,
people react, taking it seriously, then somehow the rug is pulled away, and
people first suspect, then realize that they have been fooled. Sometimes a
state of uncertainty prevails, and the event just fades from public
consciousness; sometimes the hoaxer gets unwillingly unmasked much later;
sometimes the hoaxer is exposed to public opprobrium; more often, the
hoaxer claims credit to construct public notoriety for himself or herself.” (p72)
o Fake news as completely fabricated content:
Among the type of fake news discussed earlier, the majority of researchers rightly
associated fake news with fabricated content. Thus, the following definitions are
identified. Fake news as:
▪ “… news articles that are intentionally and verifiably false, and could mislead
readers” (Allcott & Gentzkow 2017, p. 213).
▪ … a completely fabricated claim or story created with an intention to deceive,
often for a secondary gain (Fake News Challenge, 2017).
▪ “…information that is designed to be confused with legitimate news and is
intentionally false.” (Oremus, 2017)
▪ “… either wholly false or containing deliberately misleading elements
incorporated within its content or context” (Bakir and McStay 2017, p. 1).
▪ “… the presentation of false claims that purport to be about the world in a
format and with content that resembles the format and content of legitimate
media organisations.”(Levy 2017, p. 20)
▪ “…. one that purports to describe events in the real world, typically by
mimicking the conventions of traditional media reportage, yet is known by its
creators to be significantly false, and is transmitted with the two goals of
being widely re-transmitted and of deceiving at least some of its audience.”
(Rini, 2017: E45)

The problem with many of these definitions is that they assume that fake news is completely
fabricated and has no element of truth. This may not always be the case. The other concern
with some of these definitions is the scope being limited to political news. Again, this is not
always the case. One element that seems to be common is the intention behind the news.

As such, the most concise definition that encompasses the key elements of fake news has
come from Gelfert (2018) whereby fake news “…should be reserved for cases of deliberate
presentation of false or misleading claims as news, where these are misleading by design,”(p.
1) with an emphasis on the term by design. The argument is that this form should be linked to
channels intent on the manipulation of their audience cognitive processes.

Thus, we define fake news as a phenomenon in which news or narratives that have been
manufactured to deliberately deceive a targeted audience where it is designed to be
transacted through a networked economy which disseminates through the trust and ethical
or psychological disposition of the network.
How to identify what fake news is?
Given all the definitions above, there is rightly fear that the term fake news is turning into “a catch-
all term with multiple definitions” (Lilleker, 2017, p.1).

Of course, one of the key differences between online news generators and established news agencies
is that these agencies have in place procedures to review and validate the information they receive.
“Newspapers employ fact-checkers to vet a reporter’s article before it is published. They often require
more than a single source before publishing an article and limit reporters’ reliance on anonymous
sources. These practices seem likely to raise the veritistic quality of the reports newspapers to publish
and hence the veritistic quality of their readers’ resultant beliefs,” (Goldman, 2008, p. 117). While
newsagents are not 100% failproof, by definition of these processes, the majority of newsagents
remain more reliable than online blogs and social media content generator groups.

Tandoc, Lim, and Ling, (2018) suggest that while fake new would have the same look and feel of factual
news, presented in the form of a website or post, however, the intention is a critical component in
this definition. With fake news, the intention goes beyond just amusement or harmless fun to become
weaponised when combined with news bots, newsgroups and targeted posting building a network of
pages, groups, and supporters. The risk with fake news is that it undermines journalism’s legitimacy,
and the source of news is no longer given enough weight. To better understand fake news, Tandoc,
Lim, and Ling (2018) reviewed academic publications on how academics view fake news. By doing so,
they identified two dimensions that characterise the definition of fake news: level of facticity and level
of deception. Facticity refers to how factual is a news article or a post. This allows for variations as
sometimes the key elements of the news are correct, but one minor misquotes would not necessarily
render it as fake news. Level of deception refers to the intention behind the post, where an error of
judgement or humour would not render a piece of work as fake news. Both dimensions can be ranked
from high to low. Facticity scale measures the degree in which the fake news relates to facts with the
low being completely invented to high being factual. While intention measures the content creator’s
immediate intention in misleading the audience, for example, satire and parody may score differently
in their facticity with satire being based on facts while parody completely fabricated. However, they
both score low on their intention to deceive their audience as they both aim to entertain or amuse.
Whereas in the cases of Fabrication, False Connection, Alternative Truth, Propaganda, and
Manipulated Visual Content may be considered high on the intention to mislead the readers but may
differ from one case to another based on their facticity. In these latter cases, the intention is most
definitely planned to be highly deceitful. As such, we can discount satire and parody as fake news.

Level of facticity Author’s immediate intention to deceive

High Low
High False Connection Satire
Propaganda
Alternative Facts
Manipulation
Low Fabrication Parody
Table 1.1. A typology of fake news definitions.

This way of assessing fake news allows a better way to judge incidents where genuine mistakes happen
in reporting by assessing if the motivation to deceive is sufficient enough to label it as fake news or to
consider it in the prism of professional mistakes. Also, the clarity we get from this definition allows us
to discount attempts to discredit news that some may simply dislike for political or personal reasons.
Another consideration is how to classify articles presented as opinion pieces. Can an opinion be judged
using the same scale as factual or fake news? Tandoc, Lim, and Ling (2018) believe opinions cannot be
assessed using the same scale. An opinion piece can be high and low on either dimension, and it
asserts itself by declaring directly or indirectly its intention and could, to varying degrees, be factual
but inherently biased. As such opinion pieces cannot be considered as fake news, they are just an
opinion.

In the same context, one can argue that a work of fiction is not fake news until it starts to be shared
as factual. Because intentions here may well be innocent at first, such as mistaking a piece of parody
as news should not be classified as fake news. However, the intentional removal of the source,
removing the contextual links to parody, and intentional sharing of the article could render the final
product as fake news.

Can the same criteria apply to enhance images for news purposes? In the Iraq war of 2003, the Los
Angeles Times used a large photograph showing an intense scene in which British soldier motions to
Iraqi civilians to stay put while a father carries his child across the road (Carlson, 2009). Several
newspapers around the world shared the image before it turned to be a photoshop of two slightly
different photos. The photographer, Brian Walski, had used two pictures blended on his laptop. Figure
1.5 shows the editing that Walski did.

Figure 1.5: Brian Walski, 2003 Iraq War edited photo.

Based on the images in figure 1.5, we can guess how the image was edited. Where the image of the
solider in original photo 2 is cut, superimposed on original photo 1. Then the rifle that points out in
blue highlight in photo 2 is covered with bits of clouds from the same level.

One may consider that the image may be fake but is the photo necessary fake news? Could it fall into
the category of visual repair of an image? Afterall the incident did happen, but unfortunately, the man
carrying the child had his head turned away, making the photo less photogenic. Could one argue that
photo editing images are permissible for photogenic purposes? That said, where do we draw the line?
When the forgery photo was exposed, the Los Angeles Times fired Walski immediately. In the news,
nothing but factual reporting is acceptable and while one can sympathise with Walski, preserving the
integrity of news is far more important.

And while mainstream media has been caught many times with sloppy journalism and photographer
intent to fake their images, social media promotion of citizen journalism means the check and
consequences of faking an image was no longer the deterrent that it once was.

Given the criteria above, one cannot accuse the newspaper of publishing fake news, as clearly this was
not intentional, and the intention was never to deceive.

Going back to the scale model presented in table 1.1; one can now be better at assessing some difficult
cases of classifying fake news. Researches had disagreed on how to categorises gossips, rumours, and
April’s Fool hoaxes as either fake news or not:

o Gossips are usually characterised as “possesses relevance only for a specific group”
thus “is disseminated in a highly selective manner within a fixed social network”
(Bergmann, 1993, p.70). As such, if presented as factual news, then it is fake news.
Where it is not presented as factual, gossips become rumours.
o Rumours may sometimes become very different from the specific origins, which tend
to be factual or partly factual, but evolve to be reported as news or urban legends
(Gelfert, 2018). Where it is treated as just rumour or urban legends, then it is not
news. As such, rumours are not to be considered fake news.
o April’s Fool hoaxes are a deliberately fabricated falsehood that is presented as factual
and could easily fit into many definitions of fake news. However, unlike fake news,
these hoaxes are typically written with the design to be found out eventually. As such,
April’s Fool hoaxes fall mostly into the category of parody or satire.

The timeline of fake news:

This section introduces a brief history of fake news along the timeline that allows readers to appreciate
how fake news evolved. Importantly, one would start to realise why fake news has become a
significant challenge, more than any time before. According to Burkhardt (2017), fake news has existed
in the form of rumour and false stories ever since humans lived in groups and power mattered.
Burkhardt sets the timeline of fake news into the following categories: Pre-Printing Press Era, Post-
Printing Press Era, Mass Media Era, and Internet Era. Fake News timeline is summarised in figure 1.6
Figure 1.6: Fake News Timeline.

▪ Pre-Printing Press Era: During the pre-printing era, much of the records were carved and
written in a variety of small scale records, but that somewhere intentionally displayed in large
monuments, such as Pyramids in Egypt and castles across the world. Whatever records we
received have been contaminated with fake news that most definitely pictured the leaders
and emperors of their times as heroes in battle. For, after all, history is written by the winners.
One example from sixth-century Byzantium historian Procopius of Caesarea (500-ca. 554 AD)
provides insights to some these practices. Procopius initially supported Emperor Justinian.
However, after the death of the Emperor, Procopius attacked him, releasing a treatise called
Secret History that refuted the many achievements accredit to the emperor and his wife. Since
Procopius was pampering to the new emperor who disliked Justinian, this was the type of fake
news of that time. Challenges of spreading fake news before the printing press most probably
involved interception of the news. The news relied on the powerful; there was very little that
can be done to challenge the validity of the news, although this did not stop rumours and
satire from flourishing.
▪ Post-Printing Press Era: As the saying goes, knowledge is power and true to that the power
remained in the control of those who could read and write it. But as literacy increased, the
spread of books and newspapers helped fuel the need for information. Here Burkhardt (2017)
presents two interesting stories: Famous satirist Pietro Aretino, who in the 1500’s Italy, used
to blackmail the Italian nobility with slandering sonnets, pamphlets, and plays for exchange of
payments. The powers Aretino held shows the influence information and, in some cases,
misinformation can be presented for people who controlled information. Two centuries later,
the French revolution may have been fuelled by fake news, not least when a picture of Marie
Antoinette was superimposed onto a photo of a dragon. At the time, the fake news story of a
dragon-like a creature captured in Chile that was being shipped to France further increased
the unpopularity of the Queen and may have contributed to the harsh treatment she received
during the revolution.
Perhaps the most striking is how similar the problems of the 18th-century post-press era
describe our current challenges with fake news. Jonathon Swift wrote an essay about fake
news back in 1710 titled The Art of Political Lying. In the article, he describes the real challenge
as “Falsehood flies, and the truth comes limping after it so that when men come to be
undeceived, it is too late; the jest is over, and the tale hath had its effect.” (Swift, 1710). In
 1898, the writer J. B. Montgomery-McGovern wrote a scornful essay titled An important phase
of gutter journalism: Faking, in which he criticised what he called fake journalism who
“resorted by news bureaus to supply their readers with daily news and over sensationalised
stories”(1898, p. 240). The advent of photography did not slow down but rather fuelled some
aspects of fake news. Photography manipulation became an art of illusion, as presented in
figures 1.3 and 1.4. And more so, manipulated photography played an important role in
promoting fake news (Fineman, 2012). In fact, Lazer et al. (2018) suggest that fake news
became such endemic during World War I that there was a widespread backlash against the
propaganda that coincided with the rise of corporate public relations. Shortly after, key
regulations passed to ensure the freedom of the press. In addition, pressure built from the
public that confirmation and authentication of news stories are needed. It is in the backdrop
of that period of serious and rather dry news that The Onion found a market and established
itself as a light-hearted entertainment newspaper that hovered between satire and parody
news.

It is clear from this early review that fake news is not recent and has been the subject of concern far
before mass media and the advent of the Internet.

▪ Mass Media Era: With mass media came the challenges of radio and TV when used in
everything from political propaganda, misinformation, and displacement. Two famous
examples of innocent radio broadcastings turned fake news are Broadcasting the Barricades
in the UK and War of the Worlds in the USA. In January 1926, BBC radio broadcasted the show
Broadcasting the Barricades which implied that London was being attacked by Communist,
Parliament under siege, and Big Ben on fire. Despite the clear disclaimer at the start of the
show, listeners who tuned having missed the start, genuinely believed the broadcasting to be
the actual events. In 1938, the Columbia Broadcasting System radio network in the US
broadcasted radio adaptation of H. G. Well’s drama War of the Worlds. The drama recording
presented the story of a Martian invasion that appeared to be live reporting of actual events
(Tandoc, Lim, and Ling, 2018). While the intention was to entertain the radio listeners, the
adaptation assumed the form of live news reports, in a time when radio was the main source
of information. It is estimated that the broadcasting frightened one million US residents
(Cantril, 2005). All too good that they were not intentional to spread fake news, but the impact
was somehow otherwise. World wars I, II, and the cold war of the late 20th century saw
propaganda employed in mass media by all sides.
▪ Internet Era: Just because something is printed in a newspaper does not mean it is necessarily
true, same applied for the internet. However, the challenges and accountability played a
major role in how one perceives fake news. The facts are that the Internet lowered the cost
of entry to new competitors, and this includes those who reject to abide by the standards
defined traditionally in the media (Lazer et al., 2018). As such, the technology which came
with the Internet Era has changed the playfield. With Web 1.0, online users saw incidents of
emails being used to spread fake news, and at the time, many categorised these types of fake
news as spam. Users also witnessed on several occasions where fake websites facilitated the
spread of fake news (Cunha, 2018). However, the sources were still identifiable and
controllable in the form of specialist blogs and portals of fake information. Web 2.0 and the
arrival of social media gave rise to the term Citizen Journalism. In the past, Citizen Journalism
was restricted to blogs, but social media provided a platform to present this form of journalism
as newsworthy. Social media changed how we view the news. “Now, a tweet, which at most
is 140 characters long, is considered a piece of news, particularly if it comes from a person of
authority,” (Tandoc, Lim, and Ling, 2018, p.139). Marchi (2012) suggests in a study of 61
 racially diverse high schools in the US; teens are relying on social media news and lean towards
opinionated news rather than objective news. More and more people get their news from
social media; in fact, a survey from 2016 found 44% of Americans get their news from
Facebook (Gottfried and Shearer, 2016).
With Web 2.0, the difficulty in combating fake news became exponentially more challenging
as the sharing expanded beyond one’s email list to strangers. In addition, sharing moved away
from having to include a sources link that would keep the article in context. Many posts
repositioned the news article as their own posts (Brodie, 2018). The use of Social bots
(automated accounts impersonating humans) that can like, share, and comment significantly
amplified the spread that fake news spread (Lokot and Diakopoulos, 2016; Safieddine,
Dordevic, & Pourghomi, 2017). One of the less talked about is a by-product of social media
obsession with visual content, is the term memes. Memes represent an image, video, short
text, or a combination of these, typically funny or critical. However, characteristically memes
combined a message with a picture that conveys a powerful message making it easy to copy
and share online. Memes are something of a landscape bullet in how an interesting message
gets picked up and reposted. Interestingly, McNair (2017) has suggested that satirical memes
the poke fun at fake news is the most effective countermeasure against hard-headed
supporters who are unlikely to be swayed by facts.
The art historian Mark Jones suggested, “Each society, each generation, fakes that thing it
covets most” (Jones, 1990, p.13). And since we are the information age where information
has its premium value, thus we have reached a point where faking the information became a
big prize. There are significant economic incentives for creating fake news that in turns
increases traffic and helps generates income from advertisers. People are attracted to gossip,
rumour, scandal, innuendo, and the hard to believe. The more outrageous yet believable a
post is, the more likely a post would go viral providing the content producers financial revenue
from advertisement. “A man running a string of fake news sites from the Los Angeles suburbs
told NPR he made between $10,000 and $30,000 a month. A computer science student in the
former Soviet republic of Georgia told the New York Times that creating a new website and
filling it with both real stories and fake news that flattered Trump was a ‘gold mine’,” (Holan,
2016). The incentive to make money seems to override the incentive to do good. That is why
social media has been accused of benefiting financially from the monetising of fake news
pages and newsgroups. As a countermeasure, some of social media giants moved towards
demonetising some of these outlets, as opposed to closing them and thereby being accused
of censorship.

This chapter has presented faking news and how it is applied in newspapers, news posts, sinister
websites, and most recently, social media newsgroups. It is, however, in the run-up to the 2016 US
election that the term fake news started getting international attention (Cunha et al., 2018). The year
that followed, newspapers and media outlets reshaped the term fake news “to represent
misinformation and manipulation,” and fake news became Collin’s dictionary most used word of the
year for 2017 (Cunha et al., 2018). With the financial, ideological, and political stakes set so high, many
concerned stakeholders have upgraded fake news from benign risk to critical risk. The minds that have
worked tirelessly to weaponise fake news and enjoyed the taste of victory are unlikely to walk away
from the prize. One should expect that fake news technique to evolve to exploit every possible
loophole and bypass countermeasures taken to stop them. Social platforms, news agencies,
politicians, governments, and researchers will need to learn and adapt faster than anytime before. In
fact, to collectively succeed, they need to work together in order to be one step ahead.

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