The Wrong Reaction to Fake News


Everyone complains about fake news. But Tim Harford worries more about the dangers of the over-reaction to fake news rather than fake news itself.

Harford starts with some history of the term and its usage:
-          The usage of the term “fake news” spiked after, no surprise, Trump won:
“The interest was driven by astonished people looking for an explanation. Fake news was not the only scapegoat but it was, and still is, a popular one.”
-          Over time, it has become a catch-all umbrella term for politicians making misleading claims and media outlets with a political slant as well.
-          Yes, it is “cheap to invent lies, and eye-catching lies are a reliable source of clicks and thus advertising dollars”. This inevitably has led to resentment from journalists, who use the term indiscriminately to try and tar every source other than the “established” ones.
-          When people rant about fake news going viral, they forget a less mundane explanation for what is happening:
“While the most popular fake stories were shared at least as widely as the most popular true articles, that is partly because the fakes were unique while each true article had dozens of imitators or parallels.”

After the history lesson, Harford tells what the real problem is not:
“Despite a certain degree of moral panic, fake news itself does not pose an existential threat either to democracy or the free press.”
Rather, the reaction is the real threat to free speech:
“What does pose such a threat is a draconian response from governments. Is that likely? The fact-checking organisation FullFact has described the response of some governments, internet and media companies as “frightening over-reactions”.
Which is why Harford says:
“We need to be careful that the cure is not worse than the disease.”

Further, says Harford, once all sides call everything that doesn’t align with their views as being “fake news”, here is the monster problem we create:
“I worry about a world in which many people believe lies, but I worry far more about one in which many people instinctively refuse to believe the truth.”
And lastly, we tend to believe the other side falls for the fake news whereas our own side and “people like us” don’t!
“It feeds into the tempting but smug assumption that the world is full of idiots.”

That’s a lot to chew on… and it’s definitely worth thinking over.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Why we Deceive Ourselves

In their book, The Elephant in the Brain , the authors describe this weird aspect of deception that we practice: deceiving ourselves! That is so weird: “If our minds contain maps of our worlds, what good comes from having an inaccurate version of these maps?” The Sigmund Freud school of thought treats self-deception as a defense mechanism, “a way for the ego to protect itself”. The mind seeks to protect itself from anxiety and other negative emotions. Many object to this reasoning: since accurate information is so critical to our survival, surely distorting information would be dangerous. Wouldn’t the goal of protecting our self-esteem have been better achieved by making the brain’s self-esteem mechanism stronger instead? The new school of thought explains self-deception as “primarily outward-facing, manipulative, and ultimately self-serving”. This is based on Thomas Schelling’s work on game theory: “In a variety of scenarios, limiting or sabotaging yourself is the winn...
Read more

Europe #3 - Innsbruck

The last city we visited in Europe was Innsbruck in the Austrian Alps. After the cold and windy experience (at times) of Paris and Netherlands, Innsbruck was a wonderful change – it didn’t feel that cold, it was not windy all of which made it easy to walk around. Something absolutely necessary given how scenic the place is.   Since the hotel check-in time was much later in the day, we left the baggage and went to the Swarovski HQ-cum-museum about an hour by bus from Innsbruck. The crystal exhibits were brilliant – colorful, bright, shiny. Jewellery aside, it was a display of what one can do with crystals. While my wife and daughter loved the jewellery, I liked the superhero themed exhibits of Batman, Spiderman, the Hulk, and Star Wars. We didn’t buy anything there, though we did buy stuff in the Swarovski store in Innsbruck – jewellery, not the superhero stuff.   Innsbruck is a major tourist attraction during the skiing season but now in summer, we saw many groups of ...
Read more

The Thrill of the Chase

So many people complain about the difficulty in making decisions while shopping. Do you buy Brand X that gives 20% extra free? Or Brand Y that has 10% off? Or Brand Z that gives something else free with it? Do you buy that flat screen TV today or wait for the sale at Diwali? Now since the customer is king, shouldn’t companies be simplifying pricing choices? Like maybe offering consistently low prices all the time? Not so fast, as the US store, JC Penney discovered to its cost. Turns out that while people do complain about pricing choices, they are irrational. Also, they enjoy the thrill of the chase. Huh? The word “sale” acts like a siren call for many people: it lures them in to make that purchase. Consistently low prices don’t do the same. Besides, if a competitor lowers their prices just one time of the year, and Poof! Suddenly that low price claim becomes suspect in shoppers’ eyes. Then there are those sites that offer coupons: have lunch at Restaurant A on Wedne...
Read more