The little-known origin of the term ‘fake news’ – Yahoo News

The term 'fake news was co-opted by the Frances Jacobin government during The Terror

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SIMON SCHAMA: Over the next two years, Mary witnessed the worst excesses of the Jacobin government. By late 1793, the myth of revolution, a spontaneous act by the people for the common good, had turned into its nightmare antithesis-- the dictatorship of the Terror, in which over 10,000 people were rounded up and sent to the guillotine, including a number of Mary's newfound friends.

Privately determined to write her own history of the Revolution, Mary relied on copies of the latest government reports to keep abreast of the news. And in them, you can see how the will of the people and the language of liberty became increasingly debased into the propaganda slogans of unlimited state power.

Here is a speech at the Jacobin club, and he says anybody thought to be hostile to the Revolutionary government should be put under national anathema. That means, basically, you're a non-citizen. You're a non-person.

The people will distinguish between the friends of the Revolution, those who sustain it at the expense of their own life in order that it should triumph despite "les ennemis du peuple," despite the enemies of the people. You know, that has so many echoes in dictatorships of the people, right wing as well as left wing. And it hadn't happened before, so in that sense, it's a fatal inauguration.

With Britain now at war with France, foreigners like Mary became suspected of being a fifth column, acting on behalf of hostile foreign monarchies to bring down the Revolution. This one is from the spring of 1793, and for the first time, the word "tranger," foreigner, now becomes a synonym for suspicious person. Foreigners were particularly responsible for spreading false assignais, false money, and then-- uh-oh-- "les fausses nouvelles," fake news. So from being kind of embraced as brotherly and sisterly heroes rallying to the cause of the Revolution, you now basically find yourself, if you're someone like Mary, as carrying a horrible virus, the virus of fakery, corruption, and probably, sooner or later, treason.

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The little-known origin of the term 'fake news' - Yahoo News