Opinion

Claire Simpson: Fake news skewing politics is not new but it is more toxic

Earlier this year, the Pope was falsely reported to have endorsed Donald Trump for US president. Picture by Associated Press
Earlier this year, the Pope was falsely reported to have endorsed Donald Trump for US president. Picture by Associated Press Earlier this year, the Pope was falsely reported to have endorsed Donald Trump for US president. Picture by Associated Press

THE consumption of fake news, Pope Francis has said, is like eating faeces. Using striking language, the 79-year-old pontiff last week hit out at the spread of disinformation which “directs opinion in only one direction and omits the other part of the truth”.

He warned the media not to focus on “always wanting to cover scandals, covering nasty things, even if they are true”. “And since people have a tendency towards the sickness of coprophagia (eating faeces), a lot of damage can be done,” he said.

The Pope apologised for the bluntness of his language but his message was clear - since people enjoy consuming ‘nasty things’, media organisations should avoid trying to spread it.

It’s important here to make a distinction between different sources of information. Those of us who work for news organisations often feel a bit despondent by the use of that catch-all word ‘the media’.

Media is increasingly being used to cover every news source - from reputable newspapers and local radio stations to false reports created online and shared on social media.

Journalists must abide by the law, facts have to be checked as thoroughly as is reasonably possible in the time allowed. Those who invent news stories appear not to be troubled by any such constraints.

Earlier this year Pope Francis himself became a victim of disinformation when it was falsely reported he had endorsed Donald Trump for US president.

That fake report was just one of potentially thousands that dogged the recent US election campaign, including false allegations that a paedophilia ring involving high-ranking Democrats was operating out of a pizza restaurant in Washington.

The paedophilia ring story didn’t come from a news organisation, it came from conspiracy theories invented on 4chan - a message board known for the sharing of extreme content.

The fake story gained such traction that the owner of the restaurant and his staff received threatening messages. It led to a man travelling hundreds of miles to the Washington restaurant and opening fire.

He had claimed he was there to ‘self-investigate’ the allegations. Such false stories have been blamed for influencing US citizens to vote for Trump.

Certainly Paul Horner, the impresario of a Facebook fake-news empire, thought so. He has claimed that Trump “is in the White House because of me”, even though he said he despised the president-elect.

“People are definitely dumber…nobody fact-checks anything any more,” he said. The stories Horner made up included claims that the Amish population, who traditionally do not vote or get involved in politics, had backed Trump, and that gay weddings and abortions were being conducted in mobile ‘marriage vans’.

Fake news is nothing new. The US in particular has a long tradition of politicians inventing false information. In 1796 one of the US’s founding fathers, John Adams, wrote in his diary that he had spent an evening “Cooking up Paragraphs, Articles, Occurrences etc. — working the political Engine!” in a bid to undermine British influence in Massachusetts.

In 1782 Benjamin Franklin concocted a fake news story that 700 people had been killed and scalped by Native Americans in league with King George III.

It’s debatable whether false stories led to the US eventually gaining its independence but there’s no doubt recent elections and the Brexit referendum have been heavily influenced by disinformation.

How else could former UKIP leader Nigel Farage, a man known more for his attention-grabbing photoshoots in pubs than any concrete policies, suddenly be hailed as a great statesman and potential British ambassador?

The difference between fake news now and fake news in 1796 is that now false information spreads so much more quickly. An invented news story shared on Facebook can harden into fact within minutes.

And as Horner claimed, people don’t bother to check if what’s shared is actually true, if we ever really did.

Much of social media is an echo chamber where friends and acquaintances repeat the same views expressed in slightly different ways.

It’s human nature that we choose social groups partly because their outlook on life matches our own. Yet the danger is that we begin to think that our opinions are the only ones worth having.

To really believe in fake news we have to shut ourselves off from the world and any contrary viewpoints. We have to want to believe in scandals, no matter how far-fetched they seem.