Fake News

Fake news is a broad subject. In the simplest terms, fake news is "news which is created to deceive or mislead readers" (Mertoğlu and Genç 3). Fake news ranges anywhere from rumors and satire to propaganda and hate speech. Often, people will even claim that something is "fake news" because they do not agree with it. Fake news is not something new. It has been around for a long time.

Fake news can be traced all the way back to the Ancient Egyptians when Ramses II inaccurately recounted his victory over the Hittites. Fast forward several thousand years later to the murders committed by Jack the Ripper and fake news was still as rampant as ever. There was little evidence to go off of so people started making things up. Newspapers, especially, profited from the murders. The more graphic and fanciful the tales, the more money they made. 

One of the most successful fake news campaigns in history was created by Adolf Hitler. The Nazi government killed more than six million Jews and millions of Poles, Slovaks, communists and people with disabilities, etc. To do this, the Nazis used propaganda to convince whole communities to turn on one another as they attempted to annihilate those who were Untermenschen (subhuman) (Otis 2020). 

Mertoğlu, Uğur, and Burkay Genç. “Automated Fake News Detection in the Age of Digital Libraries.Information Technology & Libraries, vol. 39, no. 4, Dec. 2020, pp. 1–19. EBSCOhost

Otis, Cindy. True or False: A CIA Analyst's Guide to Spotting Fake News. Feiwel and Friends, 2020. 

This video describes the role that technology has played in the distribution of news. The world wide web and social media has made it easier than ever to distribute true and false information. 

"History of 'Fake News'." YouTube. Uploaded by Hartness Library, 2 May 2017, https://www.youtube.com/watch

Our brains love information that confirms our beliefs. It is hard to accept news that tells us otherwise. It is so easy to accept fake news because it often supports our biases.

 "Why do our brains love fake news?" YouTube, Uploaded by Above the Noise, 3 May 2017, https://youtu.be/