((THEY)) ARE PREPARING FOR THE AVALANCHE
I think it may be closer than we think…
False information is saturating political debate worldwide and undermining an already weak level of trust in the media and institutions, spreading further than ever on powerful social networks.
US President Donald Trump has popularised the term "fake news", using it mainly as an accusation levelled at the media, and it is increasingly used by politicians from Spain to China, Myanmar or Russia.
"Fake news" has been generalised to mean anything from a mistake to a parody or a deliberate misinterpretation of facts.
At the same time, the proliferation of false online information is increasingly visible in attempts to manipulate elections, notoriously surrounding Trump's 2016 victory.
Nearly two years after Trump's shock win, debate is still raging on the impact of "fake news" on the presidential campaign.
The build-up saw numerous examples of hoaxes and false news stories – one about Hillary Clinton's alleged links to a child sex ring, another about the Pope purportedly endorsing Trump – which were shared massively and some believe could have swung votes to tip Trump to victory.
Misinformation had "a significant impact" on voting decisions, according to Ohio State University researchers, who questioned voters about whether they believed certain false stories.
The researchers said it was impossible to prove that false information had changed the course of the election but noted it would have required a change in just 0.6 percent of voters, or 77,744 people, in three key states, to alter the electoral college outcome.
Since the election, Trump has denounced as "fake news" any information that displeases him while his aides have offered a mixture of truth and distortions, sometimes described
as "alternative facts."
This has hurt the credibility of the US news media and led some to describe the current period as a "post-truth era" – an age without a shared reality.
"The truth is no longer seen as important," said John Huxford of Illinois State University, whose research focuses on false information, adding that "lies and fabrication even seem to bolster one's reputation and political prowess among their core supporters."
Some studies suggest that more people are willing to believe falsehoods as partisanship has risen. A 2017 survey, for example, showed that 51 percent of Republicans believed that Barack Obama was born in Kenya, despite the hoax being debunked dozens of times.
Many people reject accurate information which is "discomforting to their self-concept or worldview," noted a study by Professor Brendan Nyhan of Dartmouth College in theUnited States and Jason Reifler of the University of Exeter in the UK.
"Some misinformed individuals may already be at least tacitly aware of the correct information but (are) uncomfortable acknowledging it."
In 2018, the average level of trust in the news, across 37 countries, remained relatively stable at 44 percent, according to a poll by YouGov for the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism.
But Reuters Institute research associate Nic Newman warned in text accompanying the report: "Our data show that consumer trust in news remains worryingly low in most countries, often linked to high levels of media polarisation, and the perception of undue political influence."
This is exacerbated by the spread of false information by authority figures. In some countries this can go far. For example in Ukraine, where authorities staged the death of Russian journalist Arkady Babchenko at the end of May. Kiev said the move was justified to foil a real plot to assassinate Babchenko.
The staging, broadcast in good faith by media worldwide, "is a godsend for paranoid people and conspiracy theorists. At a time when confidence in news is so low, a state playing with the truth in this way makes things even more complicated," said Christophe Deloire, secretary general of journalism watchdog Reporters Without Borders.
ALL FOR A LARP?
https://www.afp.com/en/news/23/online-battle-truth-doc-17h6381