We Cant Fight Fake News with More Fake News – OneZero – OneZero

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Every piece, no matter how short, offers the writer an opportunity to cross the line to exaggerate, fabricate, or cherry pick facts in a way that ever-so-slightly misrepresents reality for what feels like the greater good. Whether writing an extended essay about the conflict in the Middle East, or a single tweet about Covid policies, theres always a moment where we can choose to press on the truth just a little too hard. It scores an easy hit, generates more reaction, and maybe even gets us to the next rung of social media celebrity.

But at what cost?

Ive watched over the past few months as several of my colleagues have succumbed to the temptation to fight what they see as fake news with what could only be called more fake news. They are transforming from journalists into propagandists, and ultimately undermining not just their own reputations but the entire landscape of public discourse. I mean, if we so-called professionals cant do this with civility and integrity, then who can?

It tends to start on Twitter, where the absurdly low signal-to-noise ratio makes fidelity to truth seem less important than capacity for wit. For example, one respected public intellectual has gotten it into their head that the media is now surreptitiously editing its previously published stories about Covids origins. Now that theres renewed interest in the possibility of an accident at the Wuhan facility, they believe that certain periodicals are trying to make it look like they didnt ban and censor this information last year. So they posted side-by-side versions of the piece before and after editing, saying these are the differences between the piece in March 2020 and now. It turns out the changes were made between March and April, 2020. So while technically thats between then and now, its really between then and then.

Another writer, who has been otherwise rigorous in their reporting on the ways America has mishandled the Covid crisis, nonetheless felt compelled to cross the line. They posted pictures of Americans being subjected to the most severe mask and shield standards, and people from another country enjoying total social freedom. The headline suggested these photos were representative of our nations contrasting approaches to life under Covid. Dozens of people retweeted the photo, enraged at Americas draconian measures. In reality, the other countrys restrictions were more severe than our own, and the photo was cherry picked from one district there with different standards. Photos from a state like Florida could just as easily made the opposite point. Our policies may suck, but this was a reach.

Yet another journalist posted on their blog about how a hospital had started letting whites die in its exercise of an overly woke anti-racist agenda. In reality, the hospital had issued guidance to its doctors to pay extra attention to symptom complaints from Black patients. Studies had shown that Black peoples symptoms were being ignored or perceived as less severe, leading to fewer necessary procedures and poorer outcomes. So it wasnt about denying necessary treatment to white people, but learning to hear better. There may be a debate to be had about whether paying special attention to people of color could lead to unintended consequences, but this post was about stoking rage, and beneath the journalists otherwise high standards.

Factually true but intentionally misleading posts from people who should know better. I get it.

The list goes on. Factually true but intentionally misleading posts from people who should know better, but nonetheless got caught up in the issues theyre championing. Ive been there. I get it. All three of these writers and thinkers have been correct about so much, for so long, yet garnered mostly criticism for their efforts. New York Times, Washington Post, CNN, and other mainstream coverage of these writers beats has been worse than tilted, and in some cases suspiciously resistant to viewpoints that either challenge the interests of their owners and advertisers or could be construed to offer legitimacy to anything that may have been uttered by Donald Trump. I understand how these beleaguered writers might occasionally think up clever, potentially viral comparisons and feel compelled to post them in the heat of the momentlike irresistibly good jokes.

So I did not call them out. (Ive even attempted to shroud the details here.) Instead, I wrote or called them, in private, asking them to consider the inaccurate impressions they were creating. They agreed with my assessments of their truthiness, but instead of removing or adjusting the tweets or blog posts, they all doubled down on them.

One of them explained to me that its just Twitter, not the New York Times, so it doesnt have to rise to the same standards of accuracy. Another said their posts werent intended to inform so much as to inflame to get people activated and angry. Liked Larry Kramers ActUp, these provocations would stoke some necessary rage. But is that really the problem? Theres not enough rage on Twitter, already? (Besides, Larry Kramer used facts and performance art not fake news.)

I admit I may have grown too intolerant. These are just tweets, after all, and I should know as well as anybody that the Twitterverse is not the place to conduct legitimate debate. And all of this fake-ish news is particularly triggering for me because of the friends Ive lost over the past couple of years to Qanon and worse. They start with a few over-the-top tweets like these, and then get into a positive feedback loop of likes and follows from people just as angry as they are, while also receiving pushback from magazines and editors who dont want to publish their vitriol. Then they cry censorship and end up retreating to self-publishing platforms under the premise that their ideas are just too dangerous for the mainstream media. Once siloed, these writers become practically unreachable trapped in filter bubbles of their own making. Their output becomes more strident and less useful.

It ultimately undermines not only their own arguments, but the whole social fabric and our collective quest as human beings to figure out what the heck is really going on here.

Yet we, the egregiously uninformed public, are still depending on people who have chosen to proffer not-quite-factual, ends-justifies-the-means arguments that express whatever axe they have to grind. They draw us into the yes/no, all-or-nothing, by-any-means-necessary culture to which they have succumbed, and distance us even further from any hope of rapprochement or even just honest debate. It ultimately undermines not only their own arguments, but the whole social fabric and our collective quest as human beings to figure out what the heck is really going on here.

The lesson for me and part of why Im here on Medium is to learn to be more careful about this, myself, and maybe help engender a more productive form of engagement in the process. Ill be writing weekly pieces through the summer, and more after that (when Im done with my next book). But Ill be doing so as part of cohort of writers and community of readers who I really hope will have each others backs. I dont mean that were here to defend each others contentions, but to challenge one another to improve the rigor and honesty with which we make them.

Having each others backs means being attentive to one anothers well being, and checking each other when one of us goes off the rails. Not with angry insults, but under the assumption of good faith. We dont usually err because were being intentionally false; its because weve been overwhelmed by our own passion, disgust, or righteous indignation. Thats getting increasingly difficult to avoid as our society itself appears to be disengaging from both reason and understanding. (People cant even agree on who is President.) We need each others help.

Most of all, my work here is going to be about developing better comportment: the bearing with which we engage one another and the world. For its this moment-to-moment approach to people and their ideas that may end up more important to our collective welfare than any of the particular ideas we mean to share.

Douglas Rushkoff writes a weekly column for Medium. You can follow him here. Hes the author of twenty books on media, technology, and society, including Media Virus, Present Shock, and Throwing Rocks at the Google Bus. His latest book, Team Human, is being serialized on Medium in weekly installments. Rushkoff is host of the Team Human podcast, a professor of Media Studies at CUNY/Queens, and a graphic novelist.

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We Cant Fight Fake News with More Fake News - OneZero - OneZero