Satire is a venerable literary device. From Horace to Jonathan Swift, Will Rogers to The Onion, satirists have left people both laughing and thinking. Tongue-in-cheek news reports 鈥� whether a TV station鈥檚 April Fools鈥� Day prank or the latest episode of 鈥淭he Daily Show鈥� 鈥� are a popular form of satire today.
But if satire doesn鈥檛 at some point give you a wink, it is just an old-fashioned lie.
Which is what fake news is. On sites such as Facebook, Twitter, and Reddit, articles generated by propagandists, pressure groups, mischief-makers, and page-view gluttons routinely pop up. They can be intriguing. They are often liked and recirculated by people you know. Hundreds of fake news sites with names such as聽鈥淣ewsBuzzDaily鈥� coexist with real news from The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and, yes, 海角大神.
Fake news has been around since before the internet. More than a century ago, the founder of the Monitor, Mary Baker Eddy, decried 鈥渢hose quill-drivers whose consciences are in their pockets鈥� and went on to start this publication as, at least in part, an antidote. The fakery of yellow journalism survives at the supermarket checkout line, where tabloids screaming about celebrity scandals, political conspiracies, and space aliens are racked alongside Time and Newsweek. And because cable TV is free from the Federal Communication Commission regulations that govern over-the-airwaves TV, shows trafficking in fake news are just a channel choice away from real news shows.
As with everything it has done, the internet has supercharged fake news. More than 60 percent of adult Americans now get their news from social media, according to the Pew Research Center. The average visitor spends almost two hours a day on it. After catching up on mainstream news, it鈥檚 tempting to click a headline touting a hidden secret or allegedly suppressed news, especially if it confirms what you suspected or supports your political leanings.
Established, real news is crucial in a democracy. But real news is difficult to nail down, especially when fakery is running wild. Americans have just emerged from a political campaign in which old-school news seemed pass茅, fact-checking made little difference, and outrageous claims were made. Meanwhile, from Russia to Syria to the Philippines, strongmen have been asserting that facts are irrelevant. 鈥淲ho are you going to believe,鈥� they ask, after silencing opponents or denying involvement in atrocities, 鈥渕e or your lying eyes?鈥�
Can fake news be defeated? Google, Facebook, and Twitter have promised to filter fake news. But if you value truth-seeking, please support it. Subscribe to publications like ours that pursue it. Click on links from news sources you trust. Give a thumbs up to news, not 鈥渘ews.鈥�
Real news takes work to gather and produce. Those who practice real news are willing to be corrected if wrong. Fake news looks real but is cheap, feckless, and produced by page-view drivers whose consciences are in their pockets. Don鈥檛 be fooled. Fake news doesn鈥檛 wink.