Kerby Anderson

Back in September I talked about the number of fake news sites used by left-leaning bloggers in order to trick conservatives into sharing it so they can then ridicule them. Now things have changed. Various news operations and commentators are now saying that certain conservative groups are promoting fake news because they are fake journalists. In just two months, the whole discussion of fake news is completely reversed.

I supposed we shouldn’t be surprised. The Oxford Dictionary just declared the term “post-truth” as their word of the year for 2016. Post-truth is an adjective in which “objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief.” The use of the term exploded in part because of the Brexit referendum on the EU and the recent U.S. presidential election.

Many fake stories are obviously false. The headlines “Man Gives Birth to a Healthy Baby Boy” and “Vampires Attack U.S. Troops” don’t fool anyone. But some fake new stories sound plausible and therefore go viral. Lots of people erroneously believed that “Denzel Washington Backs Trump In the Most Epic Way Possible.”

Some are now stepping forward to deal with fake news. The proposed solutions are worse than the problem. Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg has outlined several ways the company will try to stop the spread of fake news. Unfortunately, some of what he is proposing looks like censorship.

Perhaps you have seen the list published by a feminist professor of fake news sites that includes a number of conservative news sites and blogs. What constitutes a fake news site is anything on the Internet that she doesn’t like and therefore believes isn’t credible. In other words fake news is anything that is contrary to her opinion.

Many of the proposed solutions to fake news are dangerous. But I guess something like this was inevitable in this “post-truth” world.