Budapest Post

Cum Deo pro Patria et Libertate
Budapest, Europe and world news

Election Day is also a referendum on Trump's era of 'fake news'

Election Day is also a referendum on Trump's era of 'fake news'

No matter what happens in the 2020 election, this chapter of American history could well be called the "fake news age."

One moment on January 11, 2017 crystallized it: When Trump pointed at CNN's Jim Acosta and said out loud, for the very first time, "you are fake news."
Acosta was trying to ask a perfectly reasonable question about Trump and Russia. The president-elect was cornered, and he responded with the "fake news" slur.

The presidential election is either a rejection of the Trump years or a four-more-years reaffirmation. If Joe Biden prevails, it will be — among a hundred other things -- a repudiation of the real-is-fake, down-is-up dynamic that has distorted American politics.

So it's an opportune time to take stock of what has changed in the past four years.

Trump bashed the media all throughout his 2016 campaign, but what he lacked was a "build the wall" type slogan. That's why January 11 was a turning point. Everything since — all the anti-media attacks and pro-Trump propaganda campaigns and Covid-19 denialism and assertions that you shouldn't believe your own eyes and ears — is rooted in Trump's "fake news" statement.

Trump weaponized a term that already existed and turned it into a bumper sticker, an insult, a punchline. In effect he challenged every American to choose:

Do you believe me or the press corps? He gave his fans an escape hatch, an all-purpose excuse, a rationalization for every bad bit of news: It's "fake." Or at least it could be, so don't stray from the pack, just trust your president and Sean Hannity and The Gateway Pundit.

A consistent majority of Americans saw this technique for what it was. But Trump's fake-out succeeded in separating much of his base from the outlets historically known as the "mainstream media." In the 1,378 days of his presidency, Trump has cried "fake news" more than 2,000 times, according to Factba.se. He has tweeted it a dozen times this week.

What the term 'fake news' used to mean


Here, I have to confess to my own little bit of guilt. I might be one or two percent responsible for catapulting the term "fake news" onto Trump's radar in 2016. But this isn't about me — it's about the history of the term.

In the 2000s Jon Stewart and "The Daily Show" were "fake news." In 2014 BuzzFeed's Craig Silverman started using the term to describe malicious made-up stories that preyed on peoples' fears. One early example tried to trick users into thinking that Ebola was spreading in Texas.

Silverman is both credited and blamed for coining this definition of "fake news." And like me, he has some regrets. So I asked him to join me for a conversation on this week's "Reliable Sources" podcast, about what "fake news" was and what it has become.

Silverman did a real service by identifying a very real phenomena that persists today: Made-up stories that are designed to deceive people and are primed to spread virally on social media. He and a handful of other reporters were all over this beat in 2016. I say that I share in the responsibility because, in the weeks leading up to Election Day, I used my platform on CNN to call attention to this "fake news" plague.

I pointed out that there were all sorts of made-up stories spreading on Facebook and other sites, and that most of these lies ("Pope endorses Trump") were concocted to help Trump and hurt Clinton. What we didn't know was that stories were being written and distributed by Russian hackers. Others were written by Americans trying to make a quick buck with ads.

After Trump won the election, "fake news" received a lot of attention. Silverman's pre-election stories suddenly gained a lot more web traffic. Some commentators even claimed that Trump voters were tricked into supporting him. To be clear, no credible news outlets actually cited "fake news" as the reason for Trump's election, but the speculation "trickled up to Trump," Silverman said. And Trump, sensitive to any suggestion that he didn't win legitimately, pulled a "jujitsu move" and called the real media "fake."

What was it like for Silverman to hear Trump weaponize the term at that January 11 press conference? "It was CRAZY!" he exclaimed. And it's "a great little case study in how our information environment works." Trump redefined the term and stripped away the original context; world leaders with authoritarian tendencies used it as a cudgel; and "so our ability to actually have a focused conversation about, you know, actual fake news" was impaired.

'Extreme wins'


The thing that Trump does better than anything else, Silverman said, is "the exploitation of our information environment. He understood very early on that in a crowded field of candidates, and in a crowded and oversaturated information environment, extreme wins. And the stuff that was supposed to disqualify him became the things that started to bring people to him and get him the coverage and enable him to drown out everyone else."

With the term "fake news," Trump "took ownership of it that day in January and just hammered it and hammered it and hammered it." That's been a through-line of the Trump years: A president and his media allies "choosing to not only attack the press with that term, but also to elevate conspiracy theories like QAnon, to consistently attack the institutions and frameworks of credible information — that's been the theme over the last four years.

And that's why, in spite of platforms and funders and journalists and academics and so many aspects of society coming together to try and improve our information environment, that's why we still today have, in the United States, a more conspiratorial information environment than perhaps has ever existed in the country. And that's because of the power Trump has had and how he has chosen to use it."

The conspiracy theories have continued in the closing days of Trump's re-election campaign. In recent days he has baselessly claimed that the press is hyping the Covid-19 crisis to help Biden; that the news coverage of Covid will suddenly dissipate after the election; and that Biden can't win unless the election is rigged.

Silverman's biggest concern now


Platforms like Facebook and Twitter were basically blind to the disinformation problem in 2016. They've come a long way since then, but the media environment is still really difficult and "in some ways dangerous" for "the average person to navigate," Silverman said in our podcast conversation.

In 2020, there are so many more forms of disinformation. CNN has a regularly-updated guide to "false and misleading content online." This week the Washington Post and The New York Times both reported on lie-filled text messages that are making the rounds. The Times' Cade Metz said there are "increasingly widespread efforts to distribute disinformation through text messages," but the efforts are very hard to track.

On big platforms like Facebook, outright falsehoods are subject to fact-checking now, and the president's posts are sometimes labeled accordingly. But hyperpartisan memes and videos and articles are what the platforms "really still don't have any way of dealing with," Silverman said, and "that is the stuff that gets people really juiced up and, you know, fires up their anger and hatred.

And that stuff still travels really well." We're likely to see an inordinate amount of that content -- not false, per se, but misleading and sickening -- in the immediate aftermath of the election.

AI Disclaimer: An advanced artificial intelligence (AI) system generated the content of this page on its own. This innovative technology conducts extensive research from a variety of reliable sources, performs rigorous fact-checking and verification, cleans up and balances biased or manipulated content, and presents a minimal factual summary that is just enough yet essential for you to function as an informed and educated citizen. Please keep in mind, however, that this system is an evolving technology, and as a result, the article may contain accidental inaccuracies or errors. We urge you to help us improve our site by reporting any inaccuracies you find using the "Contact Us" link at the bottom of this page. Your helpful feedback helps us improve our system and deliver more precise content. When you find an article of interest here, please look for the full and extensive coverage of this topic in traditional news sources, as they are written by professional journalists that we try to support, not replace. We appreciate your understanding and assistance.
Newsletter

Related Articles

0:00
0:00
Close
Altman Says GPT-5 Already Outpaces Him, Warns AI Could Automate 40% of Work
Russian Research Vessel 'Yantar' Tracked Mapping Europe’s Subsea Cables, Raising Security Alarms
Global Cruise Industry Posts Dramatic Comeback with 34.6 Million Passengers in 2024
U.S. Demands Brussels Scrutinize Digital Rules to Prevent Bias Against American Tech
Private Equity’s Fundraising Surge Triggers Concern of European Market Shake-Out
Tokyo’s Jimbōchō Named World’s Coolest Neighbourhood for 2025
European Officials Fear Trump May Shift Blame for Ukraine War onto EU
The Personality Rights Challenge in India’s AI Era
Italy Considers Freezing Retirement Age at 67 to Avert Scheduled Hike
Italian City to Impose Tax on Visiting Dogs Starting in 2026
Study Finds No Safe Level of Alcohol for Dementia Risk
Trump Says Ukraine Can Fully Restore Borders with NATO Backing
Europe Signals Stronger Support for Taiwan at Major Taipei Defence Show
Germany Weighs Excluding France from Key European Fighter Jet Programme
Cyberattack Disrupts Check-in and Boarding Systems at Major European Airports
Björn Borg Breaks Silence: Memoir Reveals Addiction, Shame and Cancer Battle
When Extremism Hijacks Idealism: How the Baader-Meinhof Gang Emerged and Fell
JWST Data Brings TRAPPIST-1e Closer to Earth-Like Habitability
Trump Orders $100,000 Fee on H-1B Visas and Launches ‘Gold Card’ Immigration Pathway
France’s Looming Budget Crisis and Political Fracture Raise Fears of Becoming Europe’s “Sick Man”
Three Russian MiG-31 Jets Breach Estonian Airspace in ‘Unprecedentedly Brazen’ NATO Incident
European manufacturers against ban on polluting cars: "The industry may collapse"
Turkish car manufacturer Togg Enters German Market with 5-Star Electric Sedan and SUV to Challenge European EV Brands
Christian Brueckner Released from German Prison after Serving Unrelated Sentence
World’s Longest Direct Flight China Eastern to Launch 29-Hour Shanghai–Buenos Aires Direct Flight via Auckland in December
New OpenAI Study Finds Majority of ChatGPT Use Is Personal, Not Professional
The conservative right spreads westward: a huge achievement for 'Alternative for Germany' in local elections
Pope Leo Warns of Societal Crisis Over Mega-CEO Pay, Citing Tesla’s Proposed Trillion-Dollar Package
Poland Green-Lights NATO Deployment in Response to Major Russian Drone Incursion
U.S. and China Agree on Framework to Shift TikTok to American Ownership
Le Pen Tightens the Pressure on Macron as France Edges Toward Political Breakdown
Czech Republic signs €1.34 billion contract for Leopard 2A8 main battle tanks with delivery from 2028
Penske Media Sues Google Over “AI Overviews,” Claiming It Uses Journalism Without Consent and Destroys Traffic
Indian Student Engineers Propose “Project REBIRTH” to Protect Aircraft from Crashes Using AI, Airbags and Smart Materials
One in Three Europeans Now Uses TikTok, According to the Chinese Tech Giant
Could AI Nursing Robots Help Healthcare Staffing Shortages?
NATO Deploys ‘Eastern Sentry’ After Russian Drones Violate Polish Airspace
The New Life of Novak Djokovic
German police raid AfD lawmaker’s offices in inquiry over Chinese payments
Volkswagen launches aggressive strategy to fend off Chinese challenge in Europe’s EV market
France Erupts in Mass ‘Block Everything’ Protests on New PM’s First Day
Poland Shoots Down Russian Drones in Airspace Violation During Ukraine Attack
Apple Introduces Ultra-Thin iPhone Air, Enhanced 17 Series and New Health-Focused Wearables
Macron Appoints Sébastien Lecornu as Prime Minister Amid Budget Crisis and Political Turmoil
Vatican hosts first Catholic LGBTQ pilgrimage
Apple Unveils iPhone 17 Series, iPhone Air, Apple Watch 11 and More at 'Awe Dropping' Event
France joins Eurozone’s ‘periphery’ as turmoil deepens, say investors
France Faces New Political Crisis, again, as Prime Minister Bayrou Pushed Out
Nayib Bukele Points Out Belgian Hypocrisy as Brussels Considers Sending Army into the Streets
France, at an Impasse, Heads Toward Another Government Collapse
×