Knowing whether a story is false can be tricky even for experts due to the vast amount of information shared and/ or published.
Fake news is disinformation. According to Dictinary.com, disinformation is deliberately misleading or biased information; manipulated narrative or fact; propaganda.
With my years of experience in this industry to the apex, I can confidently tell fake news in Ghana through three main ways. But today, I will share one of the ways used in selling fake news online. The first is to look out for the news portal that carries a so-called ‘big’ story first.
Any establishment, institution or person that wants to spread fake news in Ghana will usually give it to obscure portals, less known, less credible, and less read. The portals will run the story with not many views or readership. The whole idea is to push it out there first. It will gain traction with additional steps. It’s also cheaper as you don’t need many resources to activate such portals. The establishment, institution or person will then use its ‘armies’ to spread such website story. On group pages, individually and usually will come with a subtle disclaimer, “have you seen this story? what do you make of this story? Eiii, could this be true?”
That is how it gains currency if it does. Then after a while, one or two not too trusted news portals but widely read, will be prevailed upon to publish. These portals are usually afraid of defamation actions. They will resist it and insist that they issue a disclaimer and point to the source. It is the reason in the first place, they won’t run such a story unless you show them clear evidence or documentation-even if it’s for sighting. You will also notice that such stories will remain on the fringes but will never gain publication in mainstream and big media. Occasionally, one will slip through but that is when they can influence a ‘big’ person in such an establishment. Even if it will only be published on their news website.
One of the cures to this according to Danielle Citron is for you to “Read before you retweet or share. Remind yourself that there are human beings in the picture.”
Those who produce fake news also exploit a major weakness of human beings. We often don’t read beyond a headline. And even the ‘learned’ don’t understand the issue at play or have little information about the subject matter. The Disinformation enterprise also sprinkles a bit of factuality. Let’s use an example of say fake news about a pastor having multiple sexual affairs.
A fake news person will use factual circumstances such as your presence in the houses of these persons, in reality, you were there, but to pray for them.
No one can uproot fake news. It’s been there since Adam. But you can reduce its impact or effect.
The otherthing to look out for is timing…
Source:Mybrytfmonline.com/Sammy Darko Esq
