As fake news evolves, it has gone from random clickbait and doctored photos to sophisticated multi-layered operations, skilled at exploiting the capacity of social media’s echo and amplification chambers. It seeks to control not just the story, but the public’s ability to trust in the press as a reliable source of information for holding government accountable, and to destroy the credibility of investigative storytellers it targets. It seeks to turn facts into “facts,” with truth up for grabs—to sometimes devastating and dangerous effect. But all is not dark. Alongside this assault on verifiable truth, equally sophisticated responses are emerging to expose the machinery behind the factories of fake reality, and strategies to challenge its spread.
With Lee Foster, Sam Gregory, Edward Klaris, Robert Maguire, Maxim Pozdorovkin.