“假新闻”从何而来？

By David Barnett

W hen the RMS Titanic hit an iceberg on the night of 14 April 1912， the crew of the ship used telegraphy technology to not only call for help but to provide updates on the situation in the Atlantic Ocean.1 Unverified and unsigned telegrams were dispatched to Fleet Street.2 Newspapers duly reported that everything was under control and the Titanic， deemed to be unsinkable， was going to survive its brush with catastrophe.3

Those on board the vessel4， however， were not so confident. The press was unable to keep up with what was a rapidly developing situation， going only with the information they had to hand. The effect was one of the earliest examples of what some might call “fake news”.

In November 2017， “fake news” was named Collins Dictionarys5 word of the year. It defines the expression as “false， often sensational， information disseminated under the guise of news reporting”.6 Its usage， according to Collins， has increased 365% in 2016.

However， fake news is far more nuanced7 than that. “What we refer to now as fake news has been around ever since human communication began，” says OShea， the senior manager of fake news exhibitions in 2017 at the National Science and Media Museum. “We still talk of gossips and whispers， when the meaning of something is altered or lost through retellings，or shaggy-dog stories， tall tales that have been added to or exaggerated.8 Stories have always been embellished in certain ways to push a particular agenda.”9

But the modern understanding of fake news deals more with the technology that is behind our media， adds OShea. “Theres something fundamentally new... the infrastructure of the internet， overlaid with platforms such as Facebook， Twitter， Buzzfeed... have come together to carve out a media which is not the media we were accustomed to in the 20th century”.10 All this new technology and media， he says， has been “mashed up with some pretty potent political and social events in the past few years， which has created what I see as a perfect storm for fake news.”11

Therere five factors which contribute to the spread of fake news： political gain； misreporting； going viral； financial gain； and“not letting the truth get in the way of a good story”.12

The Titanic disaster is a prime example of misreporting， which does not have to be malicious in intent.13 The museum has worked with the Peace Studies department at the University of Bradford， contributing papers from its archive showing that telegrams stating that all the passengers from the Titanic had been rescued were reported as fact in newspapers， before the full extent of the tragedy came to light.14

“That was more than 100 years ago and this situation has accelerated so much today，” says OShea. Social media was abuzz with theories， witness accounts and first-hand reports，15 many of which were taken up by the mainstream media.

The problem with unverified stories being shared， even with the best intentions， is it creates a fog of misinformation. “People want to help in a situation like that，” says OShea， “and often all they can do is share social media posts. But if those posts are later discredited or proved unfounded，16 and have been picked up by mainstream media， then people begin to distrust the media.”

Going viral is another defining trait of fake news. In the early 20th century it took years rather than seconds but the principle was the same： people shared the photographs around， not checking the veracity of them， either wanting to believe they were real， or just because they were a novelty.17

Its long been believed that the motto of Fleet Street was“never let the facts get in the way of a good story”， illustrated by a news story earlier in 2017 that Jeremy Corbyn had refused to bow his head to the Queen at the state opening of Parliament.18 It was accompanied by photos and videos of the apparent snub； only later did it emerge that protocol doesnt require bowing to the Queen in these situations，19 but that didnt matter， the story was already out.

The final two criteria20 for a story to be fake news often go hand in hand： as a political tool， and must to make profit. For one of the many examples of the first， there was the row in January， 2017 at Donald Trumps inauguration when Sean Spicer， the former White House press secretary， claimed the turnout had been the largest ever for such an event.21 This was duly reported， until social media users compared the photos with those of Barack Obamas inauguration in 2009.

And staging fake news for profit is exemplified particularly well by the Macedonian town of Veles which， in 2016， was the base for more than 100 websites publishing plagiarised news of the US elections.22 How does that make money？ Easier than youd think. It took only a relatively few people to click on the stories before the algorithms operated by social media sites such as Facebook kicked in； if I click on a story， Facebook will decide that you might like it also， and nudge you towards it.23 And if you read it， then your friends might also be interested. Before long these Macedonian websites with stolen news were clocking up24 astonishing hits， which then attracted Google ads， earning the website owners a nice profit.

The good news is a number of new media organisations are trying to encourage us to think about where news comes from， who puts it out， and whether anyone can gain politically， financially or ideologically by it， before we share it around social media and thus give it a sheen of respectability and trustworthiness.25

But we live in a fast-moving world. People have been conditioned to trust the press in the past， which is why we blithely26 share stories. But that trust is crumbling27， especially among younger people who do not have the tradition of reading a daily newspaper. The emergence of news platforms where the line between journalism and people simply sharing what they believe is—or want to be—true is blurring so much that fact and fiction are often indistinguishable.28

1. RMS Titanic： 皇家郵轮泰坦尼克号，此名称的由来是，在远洋邮轮盛行时，所有英国的大型邮轮均属于英国皇家，因此在船名前加上“Royal Mail Steamship（皇家邮船）”，RMS是其缩写；telegraphy： 电报系统。

2. unverified： 未经核实的；unsigned： 未签名的；dispatch： 发送；Fleet Street：（英国伦敦的）弗利特街，又名舰队街，以报馆集中而著称。

3. brush with： 短暂的历险，不愉快的小接触；catastrophe： 大灾难。

4. vessel： 船，舰。

5. Collins Dictionary： 《柯林斯词典》，是美国权威的英语词典。

6. 它将该词定义为“假借新闻报道形式传播的错误虚假、耸人听闻的信息”。sensational： 引起轰动的，耸人听闻的；disseminate： 散布，传播；under the guise of： 在……的伪装下。

7. nuanced： 微妙的，有细微差别的。

8. shaggy-dog story： 冗长的笑话（结尾通常很无聊，令人失望）；tall tale： 离奇故事，天方夜谭。

9. embellish： 给（故事）润色；agenda：秘密计划，秘密目标。

10. infrastructure： 基础设施；be overlaid with： 用……覆盖；Buzzfeed： 美国的新闻聚合网站，提供当天网上的最热门事件；carve out： 开辟出。

11. 他表示，在过去几年里，所有这些新技术和新媒体“都和强有力的政治、社会事件融汇在一起，产生了我所认为的假新闻的完美风暴”（指假新闻铺天盖地席卷而来）。mash up： 捣烂，捣碎。

12. 假新闻传播的背后有五大因素：政治利益、报道失实、病毒式传播、经济利益，以及“不要让事实真相妨碍一个好故事”。

13. a prime example： 非常典型的例子；malicious： 蓄意的，恶意的。

14. Peace Studies： 和平学，兴起于二战后的西方，是一门跨政治学、社会学、经济学、人类学及心理学等领域的应用学科，以科学的方式来研究如何获致和平；archive： 档案，档案馆；come to light： 曝光，真相大白。

15. abuzz： 喧闹的，骚动的；witness account： 目击者的叙述。

16. discredit： 使不可信，使人质疑；unfounded： 没有事实根据的。

17. veracity： 真实性；novelty： 新奇事物。

18. Jeremy Corbyn： 杰里米·科尔宾（1949— ），英国工党领袖；bow ones head： 低头；state opening of Parliament： 英国国会开幕大典。

19. snub：（言行的）冷落，怠慢；protocol：礼仪，礼节。

20. criteria： 标准（criterion的复数）。

21. row： 骚动，纠纷；inauguration：就职典礼；turnout： 出席人数。

22. stage： 筹划；Macedonian town of Veles： 马其顿的韦莱斯镇；plagiarised：剽窃的，抄袭的。（备注：在2016年美国大选的最后几个星期，据《卫报》和BuzzFeed网站揭露，人口仅5.5万的马其顿韦莱斯镇竟注册了一百多家支持特朗普的网站，其中许多网站上充斥着耸人听闻的假新闻。其中关注量最高的两条“新闻”，一条声称希拉里即将受到刑事诉讼，另一条说罗马教皇认可了特朗普。网站充足的访问流量也使它们从“谷歌AdSense”等自动广告引擎中捞到不少油水。）

23. algorithm： [计]算法；kick in：开始生效；nudge： 轻推。

24. clock up： 赢得。

25. ideologically： 思想上，意识形态上；sheen：光彩，光辉。

26. blithely： // 漫不经心地。

27. crumble： 瓦解，破碎。

28. 这些新兴的新闻平台的出现使得新闻事实报道与人们分享的他们相信或希望是真实的东西之间的界限变得如此模糊，以至于真假往往难以辨别。indistinguishable： 不能区分的。