Taking Nothing at Face Value
How the Amount of Fake News is Hurting our American Democracy
During the 2016 Presidential election, finding a story online about one or both of the candidates didn’t take much effort. Wading through clutter and lies to find accurate reporting proved much more difficult. In fact, many political scientists and researchers have nicknamed the 2016 election the “Fake News Election.”
Just how many made-up stories appeared online at that time? A study conducted in
2017 found more than 38 million shares of fake news articles on Facebook were clicked-through a total of 760 million times in 2016. Those 760 million click-throughs led to 760 million potential views of stories that may or may not have impacted voter perceptions in the 2016 election.
With a B.A. in Journalism and having published many articles, I believe the media has a responsibility to society to bring forth truth, accuracy and accountability. Therefore, the idea that millions of fictitious stories persuaded and influenced the decision-making process in 2016 diminishes my hopes that democracy prevailed. Now we are facing a new election season. What should we learn from 2016?
Let’s look at where Americans go for information. According to a 2019 research study, approximately 55 percent of American adults get their news via social media with 52 percent of adults citing Facebook specifically as the main source of their news.
The size and reach of Facebook cannot be denied. The social media giant has more than 2.54 billion users across the globe, which qualifies it as the largest country in the world. The other social media giant, Twitter. has 321 million monthly active users, just 8 million under the 2019 U.S. population. The large reach of these platforms offers a greater opportunity to spread inaccurate information and taint voter perceptions.
Why does size matter? Surely, voters can tell the difference between a true story as compared to a fake story. Perhaps we can, but the sheer amount of fake news affects its reach. In 2016, Facebook users commented, liked and shared fake news articles on Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton 1.5 million more times than mainstream news outlets during the 90 days leading up to the election.
In addition, the 20 top-performing fake election stories from hoax sites and extreme partisan blogs generated 8.7 million moments of engagement including sharing, liking or commenting. In comparison, the 20 best-performing election stories from 19 major news websites generated a total of 7.3 million moments of engagement.
Those high-performing, widely-viewed, fake articles included claims such as “Pope Francis shocks world, endorses Donald Trump for president” and “FBI agent suspected in Hillary email leaks found dead in apartment in murder-suicide.”
A more well-known culprit of the 2016 fake news invasion was Cambridge Analytica. Cambridge Analytica gained access to the personal data of more than 87 million Facebook users through a third-party application in 2015. Using that data, it placed a target on voters in swing states such as Michigan and Ohio. The company then created made-up stories and outright lies in order to influence votes and benefit its client. It pushed those lies to the individuals whose data it breached.
It would be naïve to think Cambridge Analytica was unique and that this type of violation of the truth hasn’t happen again. Technology continues to advance, and engagement on social media continues to grow. Candidates at all levels recognize that voters are online and are therefore easy to reach.
If the 2016 election showed us anything, it was that there are individuals and organizations willing to infiltrate our personal information in order to push their own agenda. The true threat of fake news may not be the untruths themselves, but the fact that we are so easy to reach.
As individuals we must fight against this threat to our democracy. Until there are stronger regulations that hold online platforms accountable in verifying news sources, we must do this for ourselves. That means owning our social media habits and online news gathering. This seems small, but it is important that each of us is responsible online. We must research articles with vigilance, choose carefully what to believe, share only that we know to be factual, and taking nothing at face value.
