Combating menace of malign fake news

Combating menace of malign fake news

Fake news is a threat to democracy in a way more perverse than most people appreciate. In these times of easy access to the ability to crunch large amounts of data, unstructured and in real time, it is possible for political parties or, more realistically, specialist troops employed by them, to profile individual voters and flood them with news, fake and real, that would accentuate perceived favourable political propensities or neutralise perceived hostile inclinations.
Political campaigning has progressed from mere appeals in the name of identity or loyalty or tall promises to something akin to psychological warfare. Parties that master the tools of such psych ops have a distinct edge over those stuck in the traditional mud. Fake news spreads on social media.
Twitter, Facebook and Google have belatedly woken up to their responsibility, as platforms used to purvey the bulk of fake news, to play a role in limiting their spread.
News being spread using chatbots and other automated pieces of software should automatically be selected for special screening. Ordinary consumers of news can play a big role by, first, waking up to the reality that all they read on WhatsApp and Twitter is not the gospel truth, and then, by refusing to pass on what they cannot independently verify with other sources.
Websites that mimic well-known, credible media outlets in their name should be exposed with the vigour with which jokes are shared on social media.
A more proactive measure would be to prosecute those who incite hatred and violence by spreading fake news and fake images. Traditional media has a big stake in discrediting purveyors of material that is not editorially validated. Fakery can harm both democracy and the media business. Eternal vigilance against it is, indeed, the price of liberty.