Fake news and its rise in a post internet era, Gemma Billington

Nov 2020

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Fake news and its rise in a post-internet era

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Gemma Billington

In a year where we’ve all increasingly turned to the internet, fake news has been allowed to run rampant. We all have to think more critically, writes Gemma Billington.

IWAS FIRST MADE aware of the term ‘fake news’ when I was about 14 years old. I couldn’t wait to show my mum the wholesome video I had found circulating Facebook of a man performing CPR on a pigeon to revive it. It could have been a lovely moment – full of family ecstasy and thrill. She watched the video, straight faced. She rolled her eyes and said to me, “Have you ever heard of fake news?” I kept my cool, obviously, but I may have been a little disappointed.

If it wasn’t for my mother, I may still be watching that video on repeat. But the problem is, it’s becoming progressively harder to spot fake news.

The concept of fake news has gained traction lately for its part in Donald Trump’s rise in the 2016 election and equally, its potential contribution to Hillary Clinton’s downfall.

For consistency, I will be defining fake news as the conscious use of false and baseless claims organised to defame someone or something, often with the purpose of fuelling political ambition and political influence. It’s also important to note that as of recently there has been a push to rebrand ‘fake news’ as ‘disinformation’ in order to disassociate the term with genuine journalism. This notion has flourished in recent years where the internet, particularly social media, has enabled these voices to be heard, amplified and disseminated.

History

The circulation of rumours and disinformation with hopes to defame has likely been synonymous with human development ever since power struggles have existed within societies. While the dissemination of stories via word of mouth probably fulfilled the

objectives of pre-printing press fake news, the development and popularisation of print facilitated a new era of information distribution.

Great Moon Hoax

In 1835, the New York Sun newspaper published a series of six articles that documented the alleged discovery of civilisations on the moon. The article claimed seeing life like unicorns, bison, bat-winged humanoids as well as oceans, beaches and trees all with the assistance of the invention of a new telescope. Unfortunately, Richard Adams Locke, (at the time under the alias of a renowned astronomer), revealed that the ‘research’ was discontinued because the telescope had been destroyed. Not only did the Great Moon Hoax show the power of sensationalism with the New York Sun’s circulation dramatically increasing, the story became one of the first major instances of fake news and the influence it yielded.

Yellow journalism was another term that gained popularity during the 1890s.

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Characterised by shock and sensationalism above journalistic integrity, yellow journalism originated during a circulation competition between the New York Journal and the New York World. The rival editors of the two publications, Joseph Pulitzer and William Randolph Hearst, were accused of fuelling the Spanish-American war by using scare-mongering headlines to play off tensions between the two countries. Interestingly, it was Pulitzer’s bequest that led to the creation of the Pulitzer Prize for quality journalism.

Propaganda in the World Wars

Propaganda and fake news were again revitalised on the path to WWI and WWII. Governments and state organisations spread deceptive information in newspapers, posters and films to sway public opinion towards supporting war efforts while casting the enemies as monsters.

This concept is generally referred to as atrocity propaganda and is deployed during conflicts to spread disinformation about an enemy. A patriotic pride was manufactured by the government and news publications to push this nationalistic war effort, failed battles were twisted as a heroic defeat and public hatred for the enemy was spun by spreading claims of rape, cannibalism and murder.

During WWI, one of the major conspiracies disseminated by Western governments was the German baby eating campaign. That’s right. Feasting on babies. After it was decided that public interest in the war was lacking, a baby eating campaign was initiated by the allies in order to ignite German hatred in the hopes of increasing support for the war. This cartoon (below) was first featured in 1915 in the magazine, Life.

Fake News in the Cold War

After WWII, ideological tensions between America and the Soviet Union saw the beginning of the decades long Cold War, another major opportunity for the distribution of propaganda and fake news. The fear of communism or the red scare was further ignited by the House of Un-American Activities Committee and most notably, Senator Joseph McCartney. During the 1950s, government organisations and news publications notoriously casted communism as the enemy of the Western World.

While the circulation and exploitation of disinformation and fake news is not a recent phenomenon, its rise in power has proliferated with the accessibility of the internet, allowing for instantaneous shares and clicks.

PostInternet Fake News The Comma

Post-internet fake news and cyber propaganda have been somewhat strengthened and protected with the support of the American President who declares the press “an enemy to the people”. Fake news and its false narratives utilise sensationalism and shock value — seen especially in the rise of clickbait throughout social media.

The following are what I would consider the three major conspiracy theories and groups that have managed to take centre stage this year.

QAnon QAnon is probably one of the most recent fake news groups who have hit the mainstream media, most likely given widespread attention during the COVID19 lockdown. Among the numerous narratives the movement pushes, their main claim seems to revolve around their members possessing insider knowledge of Trump and his administration. The major QAnon conspiracy backs the supposed knowledge that the world is controlled by Hollywood elites, billionaires and Satanworshiping Democrats who indulge in paedophilia and human trafficking and that Donald Trump is waging a secret war against them. And probably the most dangerous and harmful of their beliefs, followers of QAnon openly call out the coronavirus as a hoax.

QAnon conspiracies began around 2017 on a message board known as 4chan. The group’s messages were amplified once they spread to mainstream social media, with hundreds of thousands of groups and pages created

by QAnon followers. 60

QAnon has supposedly developed from the Pizzagate conspiracy theory, which asserts that Hillary Clinton was running a sex ring out of a pizza restaurant in Washington DC. Now, the QAnon group is taking over anti-trafficking movements and hashtags like #SaveOurChildren to subvert the message and gain more followers.

When questioned about the QAnon movement at a White House press conference in August, Donald Trump said that he didn’t know much about the group but did say he knows

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they like him “very much”. Yet even the FBI have since declared the group a potential domestic terror threat.

United by the conspiracy, followers and members of QAnon participated in an Australia wide ‘Freedom Day’ protest on September 5th to rally against imposed lockdowns, vaccinations, 5G and masks. However, the chants of “freedom” failed to drown out police. A number of protesters were arrested and even more were fined.

QAnon has seemingly morphed to become the overarching term to describe the entire realm of current baseless theories.

AntiVaxxers

Another group which has seen a dramatic rise in following amidst the social

unrest of the coronavirus pandemic are the infamous AntiVaxxers. Following the containment of deadly diseases like tuberculosis, polio and measles thanks to the invention and accessibility of vaccinations, members of the 21st century have decided they have had enough of preventing the spread of diseases. They’ve decided that it’s time to hang up their privilege and rise against those trying to help.

This is still no recent phenomenon. Even throughout the 19th century, mandatory vaccinations were widely opposed – yet this may have had something to do with the fact that vaccines were administered by inserting parts of a wound into deep cuts in the skin.

The side effects and the possibility of negative outcomes from vaccinations became the main reason for its objection. In fact, in 61 1894, a newspaper known as the Wiltshire Times published an article that allegedly exposed the motives of doctors for pushing the need for vaccinations saying that all they’re good for are “salaries and bonuses to public vaccinators”. So, I guess conspiracy theorists have been alive and well for centuries.

In recent years, antivaxxers have come to believe that mandatory vaccinations are not only dangerous and unhealthy but will erode an individual’s right to freedom.

A lot of these claims come from the ableist assertion that first arose in a (now entirely disproved) 1998 paper by Andrew Wakefield which suggested that there was a connection between the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine and autism. Despite Wakefield’s

paper being removed 12 years too late, the conspiracy fire was ignited and thousands of people caught on to the completely baseless theory and never let go.

Not only has Wakefield’s paper been dangerous in fuelling antivax conspiracies, it has been increasingly problematic for people with autism who have been completely dehumanised amidst conspiracies that position autism as worse than life threatening diseases. Even more frustratingly, Wakefield has refused to apologise for the paper and continues to be at the forefront of the antivax movement.

The claim becomes even more harmful today as it feeds into the disinformation surrounding the coronavirus where people have said they plan on refusing to get vaccinated.

5 G Networks Despite experts disproving theories to do with the alleged dangers of the 5G network, conspiracies around 5G and its hazard to our health are relatively rampant.

Fear of new technologies and concerns for what dangerous substances they

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may be generating are again, nothing new. We’ve seen it all before – from the dangers of microwaves to 2G networks causing cancer.

US doctor Thomas Cowan, who was and is on disciplinary probation with the Medical Board of California, may have been the first to fuel the fire that is the connection between the coronavirus and the 5G network. It was after Cowan’s claims were shared over social media by other high-profile figures that the theory gained traction. He suggested that exposure to the 5G network is the reason for the pandemic. He goes on to say that the virus was planted with 5G since both originated from Chinese cities (PSA: the first city to launch the 5G network was actually South Korea). It is also important to note that countries without the 5G network have been equally as affected by the virus.

These have been what I would consider the most popular conspiracy theories circulating today. And while I’ve tried to remain relatively objective, it’s hard for me to understand why theories surrounding vaccines, 5G and mask wearing can have such a huge following but issues like climate change are still being denied. In my uneducated opinion, it’s like these conspiracy theorists always need to be the victims in the scenarios that they are constructing, whether that involves their freedom being limited or being controlled by the government. If they try and make a case for climate change, they aren’t the victims. Conspiracy theorists need to feel like they are aware of some huge secret that no one else is.

It’s safe to say that a lot of these conspiracy theories have originated or at least been amplified by the coronavirus. It’s an easy fear-mongering tactic.

In attempts to moderate the spread of conspiracy theorist’s disinformation, so far Twitter has removed over 7,000 accounts as well as making 150,000 less visible. Facebook and Instagram have also deleted groups, pages and thousands of ads connecting with the QAnon community.

As the worst recorded global pandemic rages on, Australia and the rest of the world are faced with the ever-growing threat of people who think they’re the smartest in the room and believe they were personally selected to hold the secret that will expose the entire universe.

Stay safe, think critically.

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