The business of Fake News
Let’s face it- Real isn’t as interesting as fake. Unless it’s Donald Trump or Rahul Gandhi. Then, real might take the prize. Like the “real news” of Conway’s “Alternative facts” or Trump’s golden sharpie messages to the journalist who called his hands small or basically anything on the internet about Rahul Gandhi.
But, on an average, Fake is more appealing, more emotional, and definitely more viral. And that’s the reason it has become a booming industry, with “Fake News” named the word of the year by Macquarie dictionary in 2016.
So what consists of *Fake news*? Broadly, two things- news manufactured for earning money online and news manufactured for influencing the mindset of a group of people for political/corporate reasons.
*Fake News has been part of the traditional media, and civilization in general for many many years (read teleshopping ads on TV, political news just before elections, state sponsored misinformation, even the spread of religion, some argue), but I’m sticking to the online bit in this article.
So why do we fall for it again and again?
1. Because it’s easy to believe what we want to believe
Get richer, get fairer, get taller, get thinner, get a bigger penis
Would you ever click on a link that gave away “secrets” to lose money overnight? Or on one that would give “new scientific researches” about how to get over-weight over-night? So that’s what they do- play on basic human psyche. What is it that you want to hear? What is the holy grail of happiness in today’s day and age, and how would you react if someone told you that it could be achieved overnight? I read an article headline yesterday that read “Would you like to afford a luxury lifestyle while working only 5 hours in a week”? Hell yes.
2. Because if it’s difficult to digest, we want to read on
Shock Therapy
Shock them like they haven’t been shocked before. While the (real) news of Brangelina’s divorce was doing rounds, fake news creators struck gold with two different news pieces- One, that Brad Pitt committed suicide by shooting himself in a shooting range. Two, Angelina Jolie committed suicide owing to stress due to the divorce. Who wouldn’t click on those headlines, after all the 2 were going through a divorce and it can be very stressful.
Remember even Shahid Kapoor fell for the deer story? It was so high on emotion that a new father couldn’t help but share it..
More importantly, even big media houses like The Times of India, Huffington Post and others have starting piggybacking on the shock therapy. Oftentimes you would see sensational headlines with not so sensational content inside when you click. I feel that as leaders, they have a bigger role to play, than increase click bait on their webpages.
3. Because it affects us, or atleast that’s what they make us believe
Political/Corporate Propaganda
There’s a very thin line here. By the mere nature of these sectors, everything sensational always comes from “unnamed” but “reliable” sources. It could be something completely made up or something that rides on an existing news story. But by the time truth does surface, the damage is done.
Take the example of the instance Steve Jobs was declared dead in 2008 in a CNN user generated report that sent the Apple share price downhill, while someone must have made a killing of the situation in the stock market.
And who wouldn’t remember the story that announced that the Pope endorsed Donald Trump during US presidential elections. That news got more than 100,000 shares.
Who benefits from Fake News?
The guys who own the online pages or YouTube channels that spread the fake news earn money from Google Adsense or Facebook network for every click on their website. With how quickly sensational news goes viral, many people have dedicated themselves to this industry of churning out news for increasing clicks on their webpages, and earn anywhere from 5000-10000 USD per month. Read more here and here
Who else benefits? Political parties, corporates or individuals who will benefit from mudslinging their opponents. Read some examples here. Ironically, Buzzfeed is my source here L
Fake News is like that one person we all know- one who has the knack of telling the most interesting stories and keeping the audience interested till the end. Their stories range from humor to drama to ghost sighting, and the audiences get more and more engaged with each carefully crafted sentence. And even though we know they’re making it up, some part of us wants to believe it for all those elaborate details and the conviction with which they are being narrated to us.
So what’s next?
Industry pundits have varied opinions on how the issue can be dealt with, but for now, a structured approach hasn’t been established and it might be a few years before we see some relief. There is no denying that the biggest platforms with the most power have the biggest responsibility (lessons from Spiderman!). Google and Facebook are the amplification platforms for such news stories due to their reach and shareability, hence a lot depends on how quickly they can churn out processes and algorithms to correct this nuisance.
Online publishers need to make sure they aren’t encouraging fake news. While a lot of the leading publishers may have authentic stories published by them, you would notice a section called “Related stories” which would basically be sponsored content/ads from shady online websites.
What can we do?
Fact check stories before we share them. It takes only a minute of two to search the internet for more info. A simple google search with the title of the story and the word “hoax” will give us enough links of whether the story is indeed the new hoax created. For the more deep rooted political/corporate agendas, it may not be as simple, and our existing bias may affect how we perceive a story, but common sense says let us atleast refrain from sharing anything that spreads hate. If you are more enterprising, there’s a whole lot of other things you can do. Read them here
And remember, if it’s too good to be true, it usually is. (Replace “good” with other words like “sensational”, “emotional”, “politically driven”, “shocking”…)
What do you think?
But, on an average, Fake is more appealing, more emotional, and definitely more viral. And that’s the reason it has become a booming industry, with “Fake News” named the word of the year by Macquarie dictionary in 2016.
So what consists of *Fake news*? Broadly, two things- news manufactured for earning money online and news manufactured for influencing the mindset of a group of people for political/corporate reasons.
*Fake News has been part of the traditional media, and civilization in general for many many years (read teleshopping ads on TV, political news just before elections, state sponsored misinformation, even the spread of religion, some argue), but I’m sticking to the online bit in this article.
So why do we fall for it again and again?
1. Because it’s easy to believe what we want to believe
Get richer, get fairer, get taller, get thinner, get a bigger penis
Would you ever click on a link that gave away “secrets” to lose money overnight? Or on one that would give “new scientific researches” about how to get over-weight over-night? So that’s what they do- play on basic human psyche. What is it that you want to hear? What is the holy grail of happiness in today’s day and age, and how would you react if someone told you that it could be achieved overnight? I read an article headline yesterday that read “Would you like to afford a luxury lifestyle while working only 5 hours in a week”? Hell yes.
2. Because if it’s difficult to digest, we want to read on
Shock Therapy
Shock them like they haven’t been shocked before. While the (real) news of Brangelina’s divorce was doing rounds, fake news creators struck gold with two different news pieces- One, that Brad Pitt committed suicide by shooting himself in a shooting range. Two, Angelina Jolie committed suicide owing to stress due to the divorce. Who wouldn’t click on those headlines, after all the 2 were going through a divorce and it can be very stressful.
Remember even Shahid Kapoor fell for the deer story? It was so high on emotion that a new father couldn’t help but share it..
More importantly, even big media houses like The Times of India, Huffington Post and others have starting piggybacking on the shock therapy. Oftentimes you would see sensational headlines with not so sensational content inside when you click. I feel that as leaders, they have a bigger role to play, than increase click bait on their webpages.
3. Because it affects us, or atleast that’s what they make us believe
Political/Corporate Propaganda
There’s a very thin line here. By the mere nature of these sectors, everything sensational always comes from “unnamed” but “reliable” sources. It could be something completely made up or something that rides on an existing news story. But by the time truth does surface, the damage is done.
Take the example of the instance Steve Jobs was declared dead in 2008 in a CNN user generated report that sent the Apple share price downhill, while someone must have made a killing of the situation in the stock market.
And who wouldn’t remember the story that announced that the Pope endorsed Donald Trump during US presidential elections. That news got more than 100,000 shares.
Who benefits from Fake News?
The guys who own the online pages or YouTube channels that spread the fake news earn money from Google Adsense or Facebook network for every click on their website. With how quickly sensational news goes viral, many people have dedicated themselves to this industry of churning out news for increasing clicks on their webpages, and earn anywhere from 5000-10000 USD per month. Read more here and here
Who else benefits? Political parties, corporates or individuals who will benefit from mudslinging their opponents. Read some examples here. Ironically, Buzzfeed is my source here L
Fake News is like that one person we all know- one who has the knack of telling the most interesting stories and keeping the audience interested till the end. Their stories range from humor to drama to ghost sighting, and the audiences get more and more engaged with each carefully crafted sentence. And even though we know they’re making it up, some part of us wants to believe it for all those elaborate details and the conviction with which they are being narrated to us.
So what’s next?
Industry pundits have varied opinions on how the issue can be dealt with, but for now, a structured approach hasn’t been established and it might be a few years before we see some relief. There is no denying that the biggest platforms with the most power have the biggest responsibility (lessons from Spiderman!). Google and Facebook are the amplification platforms for such news stories due to their reach and shareability, hence a lot depends on how quickly they can churn out processes and algorithms to correct this nuisance.
Online publishers need to make sure they aren’t encouraging fake news. While a lot of the leading publishers may have authentic stories published by them, you would notice a section called “Related stories” which would basically be sponsored content/ads from shady online websites.
What can we do?
Fact check stories before we share them. It takes only a minute of two to search the internet for more info. A simple google search with the title of the story and the word “hoax” will give us enough links of whether the story is indeed the new hoax created. For the more deep rooted political/corporate agendas, it may not be as simple, and our existing bias may affect how we perceive a story, but common sense says let us atleast refrain from sharing anything that spreads hate. If you are more enterprising, there’s a whole lot of other things you can do. Read them here
And remember, if it’s too good to be true, it usually is. (Replace “good” with other words like “sensational”, “emotional”, “politically driven”, “shocking”…)
What do you think?
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