Battling fake news

But technical advancement points to an unending war

Back in 1925, the American periodical Harper’s Magazine claimed that “fake news” spread by radio, which was then a new medium, was “an unprecedented danger”. Almost a century later, fake news propagated by social networks is an epidemic that threatens entire political systems. Facebook, Google and Twitter have recently started combating this plague. It is not clear if these measures will be sufficient. But it is a beginning and better than allowing fake news to flourish unchecked, as was the case until recently. Facebook, for example, says it deleted over 30,000 fake accounts, which were spreading disinformation about the French elections. But this is a drop in the ocean since Facebook itself estimates that it hosts over 120 million fake accounts.

 
In 2017, far more people access news via Facebook, Google, Twitter and WhatsApp than via conventional media. It is easy to propagate distortions, exaggerations and outright lies via social networks. There are fewer checks and balances than in mainstream media. Behavioural scientists also claim that repetition may be enough to make even blatantly fake news believable. This is particularly true if news consumers exist in a bubble where they do not access mainstream media at all.
 
The rewards for successful manipulation are high. Every political party now has a “social media cell” dedicated to manipulating information, moulding opinion and enlarging its support base. According to Gary Coby, director of advertising for the Republican Party, Donald Trump’s campaign spent over $70 million on Facebook alone. The extremist Britain First party, which supported Brexit, has 1.6 million Facebook followers and pays Facebook to promote its propaganda videos. In India, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), among other political parties, have devoted large resources to managing narratives on social media platforms such as Facebook and WhatsApp, which is owned by the former, and Twitter. Fake news is said to have decisively influenced the US presidential elections and the Brexit referendum. There is increasing evidence of fake news doing the rounds, especially around the time of elections, in India as well.

 

The template for creating a social media platform for dissemination of fake news is simple. Create multiple blogs and web pages to display the content and spread it via cross-links. This false amplification via multiple links ensures the content is high in search results. The “influencer” also seeds Facebook, WhatsApp, Google and Twitter with bots — fake robotically managed accounts — to propagate fake news through endless repetition. Finally, put together groups of people-plus-bots to actively push content.
 
Google has made recent changes to its search algorithms to stem the gaming of search engines. Fake news propagated by bots is now less likely to pop up high in searches. It has also rolled out fact-checking tools and mechanisms to flag fake content. Google relies on sites such as Snopes, Politifacts and Wikipedia to check facts and uses a fact-check label to flag dubious news. It does so only after laying down the standards that a fact-checking website must adhere to in order to remain credible. Facebook has also launched a fact-check tool and taken out mass advertising to educate users about fake news. It has tweaked its algorithms to reduce misinformation. After clearing fake French accounts, it is now on a drive to shut down fake British accounts before the UK polls on June 8. It is also hiring 3,000 new moderators to scan for inappropriate or offensive content, especially in live videos.

 
Other technology companies and data scientists are also launching various high-tech methods of identifying and blocking fake news, ideally in real time. But, of course, technology companies and data scientists are also actively employed in working to circumvent such tools! This may become an unending technological war, where each side can gain transient advantage in turn but nobody wins decisive victories.