Category Archives: Fake News

Kangana Ranaut reacts to reports about Emergency allowed to be shot in Parliament: Its fake news  Bollywood Hungama

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Kangana Ranaut reacts to reports about Emergency allowed to be shot in Parliament: Its fake news - Bollywood Hungama

Due diligence was required, or a Google search: The Quint CEO pulls up Ravish Kumar on his claims of Adani owning the organisation  OpIndia

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Due diligence was required, or a Google search: The Quint CEO pulls up Ravish Kumar on his claims of Adani owning the organisation - OpIndia

Fake news has consequences.

Back in 2016, before the term was even part of our national vocabulary, it threw the government of Twin Falls, Idaho, into chaos.

Rumors of a government cover-up involving child molestation and Syrian refugees swirled. They soon leaped from the fringes of the Internet to kitchen tables and the mainstream media.

"Members of the local government, the mayor, the city council members, local judges, the county prosecutor, they were basically inundated for months on end with threats," says Caitlin Dickerson, who covered the story for The New York Times. "Violent threats. Very visceral and descriptive threats from all over the world."

But the outrage was not based on facts. The details were blurred in some cases, completely fabricated in others, depending on the storyteller and their agenda.

It was a grave example of how misinformation can have a terrifying real-world impact. But falsehoods aren't hard to come by in today's information landscape.

Here are five tips to help you spot misinformation. (Or if you would rather listen, check out the Life Kit podcast here.)

1) Exercise skepticism

Take in any new information, whether it's the news or on social media or from a buddy at happy hour, with a bit of doubt. Expect the source to prove their work and show how they came to their conclusion. And try to compare information from a number of different outlets, even if you have a favorite.

2) Understand the misinformation landscape

Misinformation, as a concept, isn't new. But the social media platforms for engaging with it are constantly changing and increasing their influence in the media world. Those platforms have no financial obligation to tell the truth their business models depend on user engagement. Reducing your dependence on social media will be good for your news judgment (and your sleep).

3) Pay extra attention when reading about emotionally-charged and divisive topics

Misinformation is most effective on hot-button issues and immediate news. Ask yourself: Is this a complicated subject, something that's hitting an emotional trigger? Or is it a breaking news story where the facts aren't yet able to be assembled? If the answer is yes, then you need to be ultra-skeptical.

4) Investigate what you're reading or seeing

What does that skepticism look like in practice? It means asking some questions of what you're reading or seeing: Is the content paid for by a company or politician or other potentially biased source? Is there good evidence? And are the numbers presented in context?

(The News Literacy Project created an app to help people test and strengthen their media literacy skills.)

5) Yelling probably won't solve misinformation

It's important to value the truth, but correcting people is always delicate. If someone in your life is spreading objective falsehoods and you want to help, be humble. Don't assume bad intentions or stupidity, just meet the other person where they are and be curious think about opening with common ground and a question. Try to have the conversation in person or at least in a private online setting, like an email.

If you want more resources, Media Literacy Now is a good place to start.

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Fake news: How to spot misinformation : Life Kit : NPR

When the United States declared war on Germany in April 1917, President Woodrow Wilsonfaced a reluctant nation. Wilson had, after all, won his reelection in 1916 with the slogan, He kept us out of the war. To convince Americans that going to war in Europe was necessary, Wilson created the Committee on Public Information (CPI), to focus on promoting the war effort.

To head up the committee, Wilson appointed a brilliant political public relations man, George Creel. As head of the CPI, Creel was in charge of censorship as well as flag-waving, but he quickly passed the censors job to Postmaster General Albert S. Burleson. The Post Office already had the power to bar materials from the mail and revoke the reduced postage rates given to newspapers and magazines.

George Creel, head of the Committee on Public Information, at the War Exposition in Chicago in 1918. (Credit: Library of Congress/Corbis/VCG/Getty Images)

Creel dispatches positive news to stir a war-will among Americans

Handsome, charismatic, and indefatigable, Creel thought big and out of the box. He disliked the word propaganda, which he associated with Germanys long campaign of disinformation. To him, the CPIs business was more like advertising, a vast enterprise in salesmanship that emphasized the positive. A veteran of Wilsons two successful presidential campaigns, Creel knew how to organize an army of volunteers, and 150,000 men and women answered his call. The Washington office, which operated on a shoestring, was part government communications bureau and part media conglomerate, with divisions for news, syndicated features, advertising, film, and more. At Wilsons insistence, the CPI also published the Official Bulletin, the executive-branch equivalent of the Congressional Record.

Creels first idea was to distribute good news and disclose as many facts about the war as he could without compromising national security. His M.O. was simple: flood the country with press releases disguised as news stories. Summing up after the war, Creel said he aimed to weld the people of the United States into one white-hot mass instinct and give them a war-will, the will to win.

The Committee on Public Informations Official Bulletin. (Credit: The National Archives)

During the 20 months of the U.S. involvement in the war, the CPI issued nearly all government announcements and sent out 6,000 press releases written in the straightforward, understated tone of newspaper articles. It also designed and circulated more than 1,500 patriotic advertisements. In addition, Creel distributed uncounted articles by famous authors who had agreed to write for free. At one point, newspapers were receiving six pounds of CPI material a day. Editors eager to avoid trouble with the Post Office and the Justice Department published reams of CPI material verbatim and often ran the patriotic ads for free.

Propaganda describes the enemy as mad brute

For the first two months, nearly all of the information generated by the CPI consisted of announcements and propaganda of the cheerleading variety: salutes to Americas wartime achievements and American ideals. At Creels direction, the CPI celebrated Americas immigrants and fought the perception that those who hailed from Germany, Austria, and Hungary were less American than their neighbors. Creel thought it savvier to try to befriend large ethnic groups than to attack them.

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But after two months, Creel and Wilson could see that popular enthusiasm for the war was nowhere near white-hot. So on June 14, 1917, Wilson used the occasion of Flag Day to paint a picture of American soldiers about to carry the Stars and Stripes into battle and die on fields soaked in blood. And for what? he asked. In calling for a declaration of war, he had argued that the world must be made safe for democracy, but with his 1917 Flag Day speech, he trained the countrys sights on a less exalted goal: the destruction of the government of Germany, which was bent on world domination.

World War I US Army enlistment poster Destroy this Mad Brute. (Credit: Photo12/UIG via Getty Images)

After Flag Day, the CPI continued to churn out positive news by the ton, but it also began plastering the country with lurid posters of ape-like German soldiers, some with bloody bayonets, others with bare-breasted young females in their clutches. Destroy this mad brute, read one caption. It also funded films with titles like The Kaiser: The Beast of Berlin and The Prussian Curse.

Vigilantes inflict terror on suspected skeptics of the war

The CPIs happy news sometimes downplayed the shortcomings of the U.S. war effort, but the demonizing of all Germans played to low instincts. Thousands of self-appointed guardians of patriotism began to harass pacifists, socialists, and German immigrants who were not citizens. And many Americans took CPIs dark warnings to heart.

Even the most casual expression of doubt about the war could trigger a beating by a mob, and the humiliation of being made to kiss the flag in public. Americans who declined to buy Liberty Bonds (issued by the Treasury to finance the war) sometimes awoke to find their homes streaked with yellow paint. Several churches of pacifist sects were set ablaze. Scores of men suspected of disloyalty were tarred and feathered, and a handful were lynched. Most of the violence was carried out in the dark by vigilantes who marched their victims to a spot outside the city limits, where the local police had no jurisdiction. Perpetrators who were apprehended were rarely tried, and those tried were almost never found guilty. Jurors hesitated to convict, afraid that they too would be accused of disloyalty and roughed up.

Both Creel and Wilson privately deplored the vigilantes, but neither acknowledged his role in turning them loose. Less violent but no less regrettable were the actions taken by state and local governments and countless private institutions to fire German aliens, suspend performances of German music, and ban the teaching of German in schools.

In their effort to unify the country, Wilson and Creel deployed their own versions of fake news. While the worst that can be said of the sunny fake news flowing out of the CPI was that it was incomplete, the dark fake news, which painted the enemy as subhuman, let loose a riptide of hatred and emboldened thousands to use patriotism as an excuse for violence.

Patricia OToole is the author of five books, including The Moralist: Woodrow Wilson and theWorld He Madeand TheFive of Hearts: An Intimate Portrait of Henry Adams and His Friends, which was a finalist forthe Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award.

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How the US Government Used Propaganda to Sell Americans on ... - HISTORY

TMCs Saket Gokhale spreads fake report claiming 30 crore was spent on PMs Morbi visit citing RTI response that does not exist  OpIndia

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TMCs Saket Gokhale spreads fake report claiming 30 crore was spent on PMs Morbi visit citing RTI response that does not exist - OpIndia

Fighting Misinformation, Meet Andy Norman, Who is Empowering People to Combat Fake News  News18

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Fighting Misinformation, Meet Andy Norman, Who is Empowering People to Combat Fake News - News18

From loose tigers to voter fraud, news outlets and social media have contributed to the explosive growth of fake news stories and false information in recent years.

But if one thing has become increasingly clear, its that fake news can have very real, very dangerous consequences.

We spoke to Jeff Hemsley, Josh Introne, Bei Yu, and Lu Xiao each of them a professor here at the Syracuse University School of Information Studies to dig into the nature of fake news and what we can all do to mitigate its impact.

Looking for a program that lets you study informations effect on society? Check out our undergraduate and graduate programs at the iSchool.

Its one thing to hear something that isnt true. Its another to believe it. Its these beliefs that lead to action, which can have both positive and negative repercussions.

Josh Introne, Assistant Professor of Information Studies at the iSchool, studies how our belief systems impact the stories and information we choose to accept as true.

His research examines belief systems pools of interconnected beliefs that are likely to occur together within certain populations.

He says, for example, that a person who believes that the Affordable Care Act was an important step in improving healthcare is also likely to support gun control as a means of addressing gun violence.

Introne attributes peoples individual susceptibility to false information to their belief systems and tribalism a state where the identity of the group becomes more important than the identity of the individual.

Read the full story: How our Belief Systems Make us More Susceptible to Misinformation

Fake news isnt just some online phenomenon. As events like Pizzagate and the 2021 storming of the U.S. Capitol make clear, a popular fake news story can result in violent action and fatal consequences.

Jeff Hemsley, Associate Professor of Information Studies at the iSchool, argues that many instances of fake news, such as those peddled by President Trump, are really just propaganda distorted information thats published for someones political gain.

And whether its a wartime newspaper ad or a seemingly innocent social media post, propaganda is only successful to the extent that it spreads.

The things that tend to spread are things that are remarkable, he said, Remarkable just means people are talking about it. And thats virality.

Fake news gets shared because its often inflammatory in some way. That makes it exciting and worth talking about it.

The world can change as the result of viral events, Hemsley said.

If it turns out that the lie is sexier than the truth, then were in danger of undermining our very democracy.

Read the full story: When Fake News Turns Into Conspiracy Theories: The viral factor in todays media landscape, and what we can do to stop it

Some false information is the result of an honest mistake. Most fake news stories, on the other hand, are produced with the intent to deceive.

This is the difference between mis-information (honest) and dis-information (deceptive).

Bei Yu and Lu Xiao, both Associate Professors of Information Studies at the iSchool, study techniques of persuasion and how they are used to proliferate instances of disinformation.

Heres a few things they say you can do to spot fake news online

Here, they share five techniques they recommend for easily identifying when a piece of information is false or has been produced to deceive, and how to make sure your own bias doesnt get in the way of knowing when information is not true.

Read the full story: 5 Ways to Spot Misinformation and Disinformation Online

The prevalence of fake news, along with the sheer volume of information we interact with every day, can make it difficult to figure out whats true and whats not. When it comes to false information and especially disinformation, the consequences can be fatal.

Here are a few simple actions we can all do to take control of information in our own lives and reduce the impact that fake news can have in the real world:

When we make the effort to seek out truth, we commit to advancing a world built on honesty, transparency, and perhaps most importantly of all, trust among each other.

Looking for a program that lets you study informations effect on society? Check out our undergraduate and graduate programs at the iSchool.

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Fake News: Why People Believe, How It Spreads, and What You Can Do ...

HOUSTON After its second consecutive one-score loss, and the teams third straight non-winning performance of the 2022 season, the Texans organization was one in search of answers. Not sure what exactly happened in Chicago. I usually have a lot of success at Soldier Field, but I guess there were always times when I might have a slip up or two, but that was unfortunate this past Sunday. I mean, I went to the Super Bowl with an inconsistent quarterback from Florida, so maybe I have some coaching skills opined Lovie Smith.

Yeah, and did you notice that when you deactivated the one inconsistent Florida quarterback who has the highest average yards per rush on the team, you LOST that game? A scathing retort came from back-up quarterback Jeff Driskel. You could have me, right there, leading the team to victory over the Bears, but oh no, no, you thought to give that Kyle Allen guy my spot on the roster. Hey, can you tell me again, how many yards did ol Kyle rush for ya? Did he get a pass in for ya? Did hedid he actually show he could add double digit numbers together? That must have been it, cause I dont think he could do what I do

The backup quarterback continued to harangue Coach Smith, at least until one of the staffers calmly handed Lovie a large object, to which Lovie calmly grasped in both hands, took a deep breath, and swinging with the ferocity of Jose Altuve unleashing a shut-the-[Easterby]-up homer to silence a road crowd, blasted Jeff Driskel across the face, sending the uber-athlete 5 yards down the field. So, anyway, back to the discussion about the game.

Yes, we didnt quite get the result that we wanted. Had our chances, but the team just didnt get it done.

When asked why he felt that was the case, Coach Smith paused, then went on: As I see, I think there are four parts of the game we need to fix, especially in the 4th quarter:

After a pause, our reporter asked And the last part?

Excuse me?

You know, what was the last thing that you think the team needs to work on?

Oh, I thought I said that it was that we just have to coach better to put our players in the best position to make those critical plays.

You did, but by my count, that was the thir

Our reporter didnt get a chance to follow up as Coach Smith had to move on to coach the defense, or so he said. At this point, our reporter could see Jeff Driskel starting to rouse from the ground.

We attempted to get further words from the rest of the team, but most of the takes were pretty similar to Coach Smith.

Gotta play the full 60 minutes of football. Just like you gotta cook 60 minute chicken stock for the full 60 minutes to get the flavor and avoid food poisoning said Tytus Howard. All about the precise timing. Oh, speaking of which he bustled out of the room towards the facility kitchen, as an alarm went off on his watch and he had to check on said stock. Stock. Is. Done! exclaimed Howard. This is what the timer showed:

After constantly seeing all of these strange instances, our reporter decided he needed a drink. However, the vending machine only took coins, so off to the facility change machine. Our guy put a dollar in, only to receive this...

At this point, he was alarmed.

So he went to ask Nick Caserio what was going on. When Nick looked away from his screen, as he was apparently watching a few TikTok videos, seemed surprised at our consternation. Hey, it is all about the building process. All about goal-achieving. If you look at it, we are a solid team for at least 75% of all of our games. 75. That is a passing grade in most academic departments across the nation. We feel that we are there.

Our guy just had to retort Arent you the least bit worried that perhaps the team is not quite meeting the real standard?

Doesnt matter, whatever your name is. A C is good enough for this team. Okwell, you might actually be on to something. I am a little worried about overconfidence. We do play the San Diego, er, mother[Easterby], I did it againthe Los Angeles Chargers. Smoked them real good last year. Some guys are getting a little too cocky. Had to take a page out of Imperial Romes book just to keep Rex Burkhead grounded.

That would probably explain reports of why some bald Executive Vice President of Football Operations was shadowing Burkhead and Davis Mills all week, whispering into their ears Remember thou art mortal. Remember thou art mortal. Remember thou art mortal. Or at least he did, until both players used their team issued Bibles...

It remains to be seen if the Texans will be able to bounce back from the defeat in Chicago. Certainly there is confidence for the squad as they look for the 1st win of the season and 2nd straight win over the Chargers, whatever California city they call home. We will see if Burkhead and Mills can maintain their humility, if Coach Smith can reveal the final point and if Jeff Driskel can clear the concussion protocol in time for the game. Until then...

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TOTALLY NOT FAKE NEWS: The Texans Look to Bounce Back - Battle Red Blog

HARRISON TWP. The reported armed robbery at a Harrison Twp. bar this week appears to be a case of fake news, Montgomery County Sheriff Rob Streck said Thursday, and his office is prepared to prove that in court.

>> Eaton woman waits out Hurricane Ian; Not her idea of Disney vacation

The suspected culprit is a bartender at the Green Leaf Inn, identified as 31-year-old Dani Renee Eyler.

According to the sheriffs investigators, a bartender called 9-1-1 just after 2 a.m. Wednesday to report she had been the victim of an armed robbery. Deputies arriving minutes later at the business, in the 4200 block of North Dixie Drive, found something much different than what the caller described.

According to audio of the 9-1-1 call obtained by News Center 7, the caller -- identified as Eyler -- told an operator she was in the back of the business counting my money when a person with a gun entered the business.

I hurt my foot when they, when he came in, Eyler told the operator.

Eyler also said she has five babies. I just need someone to hurry up.

The problem, Sheriff Streck told News Center 7s Mike Campbell, the robbery was actually all set up by the bartender. In fact, it appears she went throughout the bar collecting the money.

>> Moraine woman attending University of Cincinnati hit, killed by car near campus

Streck said he is upset because of the danger the false emergency call created, as well as hours of overtime for detectives, deputies and evidence technicians.

Without being too specific, it appears they did try to do a little act because cameras were involved, the sheriff said.

Detectives have managed to track down all of the stolen money and have returned it to the bars owner.

Streck said he is thankful his detectives could see through a performance that he said did not deserve an Academy Award.

" It does not appear a proper job of acting was completed here through all this, he said.

Eyler remains in the Montgomery County Jail, detained on suspicion of making false alarms. She was expected to make her first court appearance this afternoon.

Sheriffs investigators may elect to speak with county prosecutors about pursuing more charges against Eyler.

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Report of armed robbery of Harrison Twp. bar appears to be a case of fake news, Sheriff Streck says - WHIO

Senator Jose Pimentel Ejercito, Jr., more widely known as Jinggoy Estrada, has filed a bill (Senate Bill No. 1296) that would amend the Cybercrime Prevention Act of 2012 (Republic Act 10175) to include fake news among the many offenses the Act penalizes.

The Estrada bill defines fake news as misinformation and disinformation of stories (sic) which is (sic) presented as a (sic) fact, the veracity of which cannot be confirmed, with the purpose of distorting the truth and misleading its (sic) audience.

The grammatical lapses of its definition are not the only infirmities of the latest bill criminalizing the dissemination of false information.

The use of the term fake news, is one. It was popularized by former US President Donald Trump and his minions in their tirades against the media. But the phrase is an oxymoron a contradiction in terms.

If a piece of supposed information is false, it is not news; and if it is news, it is by definition accurate. For instance, if not verified, a newspaper account that claims that University of the Philippines students are being recruited by New Peoples Army agents among the staff is not fake news; simply false information. But another report that the Department of Health has declared residents of the National Capital Region as once again at moderate risk of COVID-19 infection would be news if its accuracy has been established through interviews, documentation, and those other means available for journalists to confirm the truthfulness of their reports.

The fake news oxymoron has nevertheless been legitimized in public discourse among other reasons because it has been used in the US and elsewhere to attack the media as supposedly deliberate purveyors of false, misleading, or distorted information.

The media, whether old (print, television, radio, film) or new (online news sites, blogs, social media), do at times fall short of providing accurate and meaningful information on issues and events of public concern. In some instances, as we saw during the last campaign and election, they do so intentionally in behalf of advancing a pre-determined end such as convincing their audiences that they should support this or that candidate. But it is also true that many media practitioners exert every effort to get at the truth and to report it despite such difficulties as being barred from covering a public event or even being threatened with physical harm.

The problems with anti-fake news legislation is that of distinguishing between the first and the second, as well as between deliberate misinformation or disinformation and an error committed in good faith information which turns out to be false but which the media practitioner thought was accurate.

It is in determining which is which that things become problematic. Under the provisions of RA 10175, and those of previously proposed anti-fake news bills, fabricating and spreading false information would be punishable with huge fines and even long prison sentences. Preventing the Acts being unjustly used against journalists and other communication professionals will require both a complainant and an enforcing agency to establish, through documentation and consultation with experts among others, the truth or falsehood of, say, the claims of a blogger or an online news site.

Whether the alleged offense was deliberate or not is even more difficult to determine. But the Estrada bills definition of that dubious fake news phrase assumes bad faith in every case of misinformation or disinformation. That much is evident in its declaring that every such incident is with the purpose of distorting the truth and misleading its (sic) audience.

Already weaponized against free expression and press freedom, the 2012 Cybercrime Prevention Act would be even more repressive if fake news as defined by the Estrada bill were to be added to the list of offenses the Act penalizes.

That it is government whether the Philippine National Police, the Department of Justice, the Office of the Press Secretary or any other agency that will most likely claim that a report that puts it in a bad light is false is even more dangerous to free expression and press freedom.

Government and its instrumentalities have used RA 10175 in their attempt to silence not only critical reporting but even truthful coverage of government affairs. Adding the prerogative of prosecuting groups and individuals for supposedly generating and spreading false information to the vast powers of government will make the already difficult and even dangerous journalistic enterprise more uncertain, and will have a devastating impact on the peoples right to know what is going on in the government to whose officials they have delegated their sovereign powers. Any law penalizing the making and spreading of false information will, for the above reasons, more likely be part of the misinformation and disinformation problem rather than part of the solution.

Like the many attempts in this country to legislate it out of existence (the Estrada bill was preceded by two other similar attempts in Congress), manufacturing and spreading false information is neither new nor rare. Neither has its impact on human affairs ever been beneficial. More than a hundred years ago, for instance, many Americans support for the Spanish-American War of the late 19th century, which among other consequences led to the US occupation of the Philippines, was at least partly encouraged by the false claims of the William Randolph Hearst and Joseph Pulitzer tabloids then that Spain had blown up the battleship USS Maine while it was docked at Cubas Havana Harbor.

More recently, in 2003 a majority of the US population supported the invasion of Iraq on the basis of the disinformation that it had weapons of mass destruction and was protecting Osama bin-Ladens Al-Qaeda terrorist group. That invasion cost over 100,000 civilian and military lives and led to the perennial instability and regression of what was previously one of the more developed countries in the Middle East.

But the problems of disinformation have since been multiplied by the trolls and keyboard armies funded by political and economic interests as well as by those well-meaning but untrained individuals who recklessly upload unverified information and who share them with innumerable others.

The resulting crisis in information has thus become a major factor in the further decline of citizen understanding of the issues and events around them, thereby contributing to the ascendancy in many countries of the authoritarianism that flourishes in mass ignorance.

The antidote to false information, however, is not the enactment of laws that will worsen rather than remedy the problem, but in educating the media audiences on how to distinguish between false and accurate information as well as on responsible Netizenship.

Some media organizations are themselves already so engaged. They fact-check themselves and each other, and provide their audiences information on how they can distinguish false accounts from the true, in addition to improving Netizen capacity to critically read social media and online blogs and news sites.

But the involvement of the educational system is even more vital in this crucial undertaking. Instead of focusing on restoring mandatory military training and appropriating millions in confidential funds to monitor the alleged terrorist infiltration of public schools, the Department of Education could more wisely spend its budget on improving its severely inadequate media literacy programs at the basic education level, which have been mostly limited to teaching students the use of video and still cameras. Unfortunately, that has never been, and still seems to be farthest from, the priorities of the Department.

Luis V. Teodoro is on Facebook and Twitter (@luisteodoro).

http://www.luisteodoro.com

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On the Philippines fake news problem - BusinessWorld Online