Post-truth and Fake News: Don't Get Fooled!

You have probably heard a lot about post-truth in recent months. At the same time, you may have noticed that fake news is proliferating more each day, sometimes even in renowned media outlets.

The perfect storm formed by globalization, the global economic crisis, and the crisis of the traditional journalism model against new technologies applied to communication has created a landscape where it almost seems that to be well-informed, one must study.

We will delve into this problem that is troubling half the world, while the other half is immersed in the anesthetic happiness of post-truth.

What is post-truth?

Although you will read it written as "post-truth" in other places, Fundéu has recommended writing it as "posverdad". We are talking about the term that was chosen as "word of the year" in 2016, which defines those situations where "objective facts influence less in the formation of public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief."

Another neologism to rename something that is not new: populist manipulation, propaganda, covert deception…

Two recent historical events that needed to coin their own word to be assimilated without the need to read a doctoral thesis were Brexit and Donald Trump's victory. But there are dozens of cases. Daily. Anywhere.

So is post-truth closer to truth or lies? It depends. And this is not a Galician response. We are faced with facts that are irrefutably real, but to become so, they have played on passions above reason.

In other words, as an article in El País explained well, post-truth is nothing more than "expressions of rebellion" against something that is supposed to be guided by common sense or logic. The "Trojan horse" that destroys the thorough conclusions of a Big Data study or that perhaps confirms its predicted exceptions.

In today's society, we can witness fictional realities, or to understand it better, truths that are fabricated.

Fake News in the Internet Era

Media outlets, in the race to be the first in this highly digitized and fast-paced world, often forget two of their basic principles: verifying news and managing reliable sources.

Social media has become a rich quarry that keeps producing news, as people are there, spending more time thanks to the mobile, and now journalists do not have to go out as much to find out what is happening. A quick glance at Facebook or Twitter is enough to know what is brewing.

But in that continuous flow of stories, many are not true and therefore should not bear the label of news.

Playing with Misunderstanding for Money, Power, or Notoriety

In Spain, there are more and more websites that deliberately play with misunderstanding, offering fake news in order to obtain the maximum number of visits and, with them, revenue from Google Adsense and other advertising platforms.

But it's not just about money: notoriety and political influence are other common motives.

Humor, the bizarre, and the incredible have become the favorite transmission belt of virality, the holy grail of fakes.

While there are cases of portals that warn that we are facing humorous news, and they quickly address any possible doubt or misinterpretation from their readers, these are the minority.

The majority are those who intentionally walk their fake news on a tightrope, no longer caring that there is no net below, but promoting that they fall to spread the hoax to as many unsuspecting individuals as possible.

The Role of Media in the Face of Hoaxes

All of the above would not be very serious if it weren't for the deafening loudspeaker that social media represents, where today the true is confused with the invented, the news with the hoax or the simple rumor.

In that game, and therein lies the big problem, many media outlets are involved, from the largest to the smallest.

The easy click, the millions of audiences who prefer to see the "news" of the latest nonsense from Leticia Sabater rather than the financial report on a decision that will affect their pockets, are perverting the already discredited image of journalists. In many cases, not only by turning a blind eye but also with their complicity.

The content marketing, which is great for what it is, has been shamelessly adopted by journalism, especially digital but also the rest, as it has seen in it a powerful tool to get ahead. Often to infoxicate with post-truths.

A Solution for the Infoxication of Post-truths?

We mix here these two concepts that well outline the current moment. The infoxication of post-truths. A saturation of news that are not news, camouflaged among others that are.

How to filter them? How to know that what we are being told is the real truth and not post-truth? How not to overdo it and turn that preventive control into a censorship that stifles freedom of expression?

First of all, the ball is in our own court. The acquisition of a critical consciousness that helps to sift the wheat from the chaff will hardly come without studying or training.

The success of post-truth lies in knowing how to touch our fiber, making us believe that what we think or feel is correct, when it is not necessarily always so.

Apart from this personal learning, both the media and social networks themselves are reacting. Not only in Spain but in other countries in Europe.

They seem to have realized the danger of leaving the decisions about what is important and what is not, but above all, what is true and what is false, in the hands of algorithms.

Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of Facebook, announced a series of measures to prevent the spread of fake news through his website, including collaborating with quality media to prioritize their content.

This was after Trump's victory, which many attributed to the libels that circulated on the walls of millions of profiles in the United States.

In the same line, Google has also expressed its intention to prevent fake news websites from receiving advertising to starve them out. The results so far are uncertain, and only time will tell.

And you, how many times have you been fooled? What solution do you think there is for this problem?