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The battle to defeat fake news 14 Mar 2017

The global fake news mill has been in overdrive. A few days after U.S. President Donald Trump signed an executive order banning citizens of seven Muslim-majority countries from entering the U.S. for a period of 90 days, a website, called USA Television, published a story with the headline: "Donald Trump signs a visa-free travel policy for Ghana." Even the U.S. president – who himself is a purveyor of false information – would have been amused by the absurdity of the story.    
    
First Draft News, a non-profit working with news organisations to fight fake news, has identified seven different types of contents within the information ecosystem that fall under misinformation and disinformation categories. They are: fabricated content, manipulated content, imposter content, misleading content, false connection, false context, and satire or parody. Indeed, the misinformation industry has shifted from what used to be intriguing urban legends or rumours spread by ardent gossipmongers to deliberate disinformation by organised systems.  

The motivation is partly financial gain, especially for online platforms that seek to attract traffic and drive advertising revenue growth. But political influence or power has turned out to be the most dangerous motivation for the spread of fake news. During the 2016 presidential election in the U.S., a news story said WikiLeaks emails showed Hillary Clinton sold weapons to ISIS. This hoax news story, and others made up to manipulate voters, went viral.   

Of course, the biggest hoax to hit Nigeria of late was the one saying President Muhammadu Buhari had died in a London hospital. But while it is worrisome that public figures are often targeted by fake news reports; sometimes, they themselves peddle misleading information or falsehoods. A magistrate in Kaduna recently issued a warrant for the arrest of Audu Maikori, CEO of Chocolate City. Maikori was accused of tweeting about the killing of some students from Kaduna State College of Education by Fulani herdsmen but the story turned out to be fake. Maikori issued a retraction and apologized.

The ubiquity of the internet and social media has given impetus to fake news. But the spread of misinformation is not limited to those domains. Sometimes, mainstream media organisations seek to mislead their audience by using headlines or images that don’t support the content of the story. Publishing of stories without verifying sources/facts and airbrushing information for political favour are common (mal)practices in the industry. All these plus the use of false contextual information to promote a narrative fall into the spectrum of fake news.

If traditional media organisation cannot be the arbiter for facts and truth in the ongoing information war, then we would have a serious problem. But there is no reason to be discouraged yet. Traditional media organisations are among those at the frontlines against the onslaught of fake news.

CrossCheck, the collaborative verification project launched by Google and First Draft News, is working with newsrooms to identify and debunk hoaxes, rumors and false claims ahead of the April/May elections in France. The idea is to help the public make sense of what and who to trust. A task force set up by the European Union, called East StratCom, is also cracking down on hoax news stories aimed at disrupting the region’s political stability. It is believed a Russian disinformation campaign is responsible for much of the current fake news spreading across Europe.

To address criticisms that its platform allows false stories to circulate and that it did little to combat fake news during the U.S. election, Facebook has launched a number of initiatives. Users can flag suspicious news reports and then third-party fact-checkers would validate or debunk the news items. The social media giant also uses algorithms to detect whether a story that is going viral is fake. Once marked as disputed or potentially fake, the news item is relegated on people's feeds. Facebook’s group of independent fact-checkers include Associated Press, ABC News, Factcheck.org, etc.   

In the countries where Google has launched its anti-fake news campaign, hoax news that appear under Google News search results are labeled as such. The tech giant and Facebook also block confirmed fake news sites from generating advertising revenue from their platforms. But it remains unclear how far-reaching and effective these initiatives are. Google and Facebook would do well to expand their solutions for fighting fake news to Nigeria and a lot more other countries.

One thing is evident: Defeating fake news requires collaborative efforts. The government needs to provide effective regulation to protect people who are targeted by those peddling hoaxes. Publishers have the responsibility now, more than ever, to accurately inform the society. Technology providers should work with other stakeholders to combat this rising tide of fake news. Citizens need to be more critically aware. We cannot simply accept information at face value; we have to ask questions. Realizing that the right to free speech is not synonymous with the right to make misleading statements is also important.

Finally, to weaken the appeal for disinformation, governments and companies need to be more forthcoming and transparent in their operations. An environment of transparency hardly lends itself to conspiracy theories.