The Untold Truth About Fake News

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The acceptable conventional approach to discussing this topic is to firstly define fake news.
According to Wikipedia Fake news (also known as junk news, pseudo-news, or hoax news) is a form of news consisting of deliberate disinformation or hoaxes spread via traditional news media (print and broadcast) or online social media
Wikipedia went further to state that digital news has brought back and increased the usage of fake news, or yellow journalism. The news is then often reverberated as misinformation in social media but occasionally finds its way to the mainstream media as well.
It is pertinent to try to divorce fake new from disinformation and propaganda before delving into the topic of discuss for the purposes of clarity and comprehension.
Disinformation is defined by the Oxford dictionary as false information which is intended to mislead, especially propaganda issued by a government organization to a rival power or the media.
Let us take a peep at what the word Propaganda represents , according to Cambridge English dictionary , propaganda means information, ideas, opinions, or images, often only giving one part of an argument, that are broadcast, published, or in some other way spread with the intention of influencing people’s opinions.
Dean Jackson of the International Forum for Democratic Studies in his work, Issue Brief: Distinguishing Disinformation From Propaganda, Misinformation, And “Fake News” said Disinformation is a relatively new word. Most observers trace it back to the Russian word dezinformatsiya, which Soviet planners in the 1950s define as “dissemination (in the press, on the radio, etc.) of false reports intended to mislead public opinion.”
Jackson further note that “Others suggest that the earliest use of the term originated in 1930s Nazi Germany. In either case, it is much younger (and less commonly used) than ‘propaganda,’ which originated in the 1600s and generally connotes the selective use of information for political effect.
To further buttress the definition of fake news, I refer the reader to David Lazer who said “Counting fake news exposure is like counting people in a fun house.” Lazer, a researcher at Northeastern University and co-author on a landmark new study said that “The very nature of the thing is trying to distort your perception of its importance.”
Also T.H. Huxley, in defining fake news said “It is the customary fate of new truths, to begin as heresies, and end as superstitions.”
It baffles genuine imagination of onlookers that hundreds of millions of hard earned monies are spent in fight against what was described as the scourge of fake news, what many have not be debriefed is about the role been played by fake news, in the global security cycle, the battle for economic superiority by superpowers and their allies same undisclosed is the strategic importance of disseminating fake news to outwit their competitors.
Investigation abound, unraveling that the entire Western intelligence system had been systematically manipulated with clever disinformation, with deep fake serving as a willing tool in the hands of rogue intelligence syndicate across the globe, this particular one is an issue for future discussion, anyway.
In discussing the importance of fake news, the role the use of disinformation in the conduct of the USA comes to mind, in the aftermath of the 2016 election, many feared that fake news articles spread on Facebook swayed the results of the election.
Next is the most striking fact of the massive new global conflict anyone barely noticed that was taking place. It was extraordinary , Vladmir Putin was believed to have attacked the sovereignty of America and other western have been dragged into a virtual world war III. Investigative reporter, Craig Unger in his recent work, House of Trump, House of Putin said “almost no one reported on it in the newspapers, on TV on the radio or on the internet, a war that eschewed bomb, bullets and boots on the ground of conventional warfare instead relied on a new sophisticated asymmetric, hybrid form of nonlinear warfare.
Craig further said “Russia no longer resort to old fashioned interventions anymore, they now adopt shadow art of war or virtual war comprising covert operations, disinformation and cyber warfare.
According to him, It is suspected that Julian Assange and WikiLeak are part of the deceit to make them seem to be heroic, principled whistleblowers as against their suspected origination from intelligent agencies who had hijacked the social media to make fake news go viral deliberately sometimes pretending to be correcting misleading information in the process upended the truth itself.
Always attack, never apologize, attack attack, attack, are the words Craig stated.
A globally respected business mogul renown for dealing in real estates across the globe was reported to the have revealed how he hogged the headlines to push up his sales, “the business mogul tips the press of an impending deal with a royal family, the reporters rings the royals, the family would say no comment, then the reporter will be convinced something is ongoing, the story goes, here our big man pushes the value of his properties.
Vast numbers of secret service operatives are trained in using the media to create an impression that there are no reliable fact, many of these agents are trained in their spy schools to develop the tool and skill to dish out divisive impressions. Which are acts of using tools and contents of disinformation.
Rampant are the riveting of media spectacle for maximum individual, group, political, economic impact. The Guardian reported that business tycoon, “Manaforth worked with former wall street journal and financial times reporter Alan Friedman to propose an ambitious strategy to discredit rival Yulia Tymoshenko all over the world,” Unger quoted.
Fake news, investigations have disclosed is largely been used to create new realities and alter the way reality is perceived.
Finally let me bother the reader with the findings by University of California at Berkeley and Swansea University in Wales. They both traced 150, 000 fake online twitter accounts that were launched to attacks Brexit and issues bordering on immigration. Likewise, findings have unearthed that campaigns that are now fueled by the gasoline of social media that are mostly real and robotic.
Culled from www.judicialsketch.com