False information is saturating political debate worldwide and undermining an already weak level of trust in the media and institutions, spreading further than ever on powerful social networks.
US President Donald Trump has popularised the term "fake news", using it mainly as an accusation levelled at the media, and it is increasingly used by politicians from Spain to China, Myanmar or Russia.
"Fake news" has been generalised to mean anything from a mistake to a parody or a deliberate misinterpretation of facts.
At the same time, the proliferation of false online information is increasingly visible in attempts to manipulate elections, notoriously surrounding Trump's 2016 victory.
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WNU Editor: Truth be told the news media has always presented news that supported an agenda or a specific political view. It is done by focusing on news stories that promote this agenda, while avoiding those stories that do not. What is also different now is that the proliferation of numerous sources of news has broken the old monopolies that controlled the news in the past. Social media has also presented a platform where news media's reports can be either promoted or deciphered and disproved. From my view point I believe we are entering a new era on how we obtain information, and how this information is spread and shared. My concern/fear is that these new platforms will only replace the news monopolies of old and become no different than how they operated. Will Facebook's news feed and Google's search results be manipulated to promote what they believe is important, while downgrading and/or minimizing viewpoints and news that they disagree with or does not fit into their agenda. My gut tells me that they will .... because they are already doing it.
Update: Here is a commentary from last year by Sheryl Atkinson that I think illustrates what is wrong with the news media of today .... Americans Have Just Cause To Not Trust The Media (August 21, 2017)
