What exactly is fake news?

Again and again you come across the term: fake news on the internet. But what exactly does the term mean? This term is often used when talking about false reports. But the term is different from other phenomena on the Internet.

Deception, lies, false reports and manipulation on the Internet and in social networks such as Facebook, Twitter, WhatsApp and CO are a diverse phenomenon that pose very different risks for Internet users and do not always pursue the same goals. A wide variety of strategies are used to try to gain attention, increase click numbers or even obtain personal data by pretending to be something supposedly “authentic”.

So what exactly is “fake news”?

That depends on who uses the term. The term is used by many people to suppress news they don't like. Assessing the quality of news content is crucial to whether what you see is true or not. It is up to each and every one of us to critically evaluate the information we consume and share.

An overview of the different types of news we encounter online:

Fake News: Sources that intentionally fabricate information, spread misleading content, or grossly distort actual news reports, usually to promote a particular political perspective.

Satire: Sources that comment on current events using humor, irony, exaggeration, mockery and false information.

Bias: Sources that represent a particular point of view and may rely on propaganda, decontextualized information, and opinions distorted as facts.

Rumor Mill: Sources that deal with rumors, gossip, innuendo, and untested claims. Also, sources that emphasize reporting rather than accuracy.

State News: Sources in repressive states operating under state sanction.

Junk Science: Sources that promote pseudoscience, naturalistic fallacies, and other scientifically dubious claims.

Clickbait: A strategically placed link designed to direct visitors to sources that, while generally offering credible content, use exaggerated, misleading or questionable headlines, social media descriptions and/or images.

Viruses, Trojans and phishing: This involves faking supposedly authentic content, files or forms in order to spy out personal data or spread viruses. This happens, for example, with fake emails, alleged changes to general terms and conditions, fake login interfaces for online banking, etc.

Hoax: The “hoax” is the fake’s little, funny brother. Hoax is also English and means “joke”. It's not as serious as the fake one and you can sometimes laugh about it - but it's still a hoax that people are supposed to fall for.

Incitement and hatred on the Internet: Incitement against politically responsible people or minorities with false reports, e.g. with supposedly authentic reports about the criminal behavior of “foreigners” and refugees.

Conspiracy narratives: The world is not what it appears to be on the outside. Unspecifically defined powers (small elites) that serve as enemies in the stories want world domination or are already secretly pulling the strings. Conspiracy stories often deal with themes of control and domination, but also primal fears. They are therefore ideal for using the narratives used in them against constructed opponents.

Urban legends: “Urban legends” are a type of modern fairy tale that is passed on from one person to another. They are stories that sound as if they have always been there and are therefore often not questioned. But that's exactly what you should do - urban legends are often hoaxes. For example, did you know that the story claiming that you can see the Great Wall of China with the naked eye from the moon is actually such an urban legend?

The duck: A “duck”, also known as a newspaper duck, is an unintentional false report that can be made by a newspaper, for example. Ducks are not malicious and will be clearly corrected once detected.

Chain letters: “Chain letters” are a special form because they can contain a fake, hoax or a legend. In some cases, chain letters with scary content can also cause fear. However, chain letters have a clear element that distinguishes them from the normal hoax: They contain a request that you should forward them, and you have already received them from someone who also just forwarded them.

Hybrid fakes: This is where things get more dangerous. A “hybrid fake” combines a true part with a false part. Real images or videos are often used and given a false description. Or vice versa: the information is real, but the image or video is not part of it.

Video: Everything fake?

False reports and rumors (“hoaxes”) are often intentionally spread on the Internet. The goal behind it: to scare, unsettle as many people as possible or to create a mood for one thing or against a certain thing. Hoaxes have never been able to spread so quickly to so many people as on social networks.

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In principle, you can uncover false reports that claim to be news in just a few simple steps.

First, at least after arousing skepticism, you have to ask yourself the right questions and apply a few techniques.

1. Exaggerated representation

An exaggerated presentation of content without careful explanations should be the first alarm signal. A lot of opinion, little content, a hardly reliable source if available at all and very shortened presentations that are almost compressed to headlines should be viewed with caution.

2. Who actually writes here?

Look at the imprint of a website or blog. Are you dealing with transparent and reputable information or are you dealing with random and untraceable address information for a post office box in Central America? Or maybe there is no imprint at all? Non-existent contact points should be viewed more critically. It is also important to differentiate: is it an opinion blog or a reputable press site?

3. Content cross-check

Can this content also be found on other media portals? A Google search under the news tab will help here. Has this topic been dealt with by various journalists or is it just a pure copy and paste by anonymously run blogs? Enter parts of the headline into the Google search bar; if the wording of the reports is often the same, it indicates unreflected copies.

4. Image check

Crazy situations with harsh images: does the image belong to a story or does the story belong to a picture? The “hybrid fake” is very common, in which either the image shows a real situation but the accompanying text is incorrect, or the content of the text is correct but is depicted incorrectly. A reverse search for images helps here:

Tip for advanced users: Reverse searches using Google or TinEye Reverse Image Search sometimes do not produce any results because you do not know an image or have not included it in the index. Here, image searches via Yandex sometimes produce astonishing results.

5. Use filters in search engines

Narrow down your search! If you notice that a result is obviously not as brand new as a website wants to sell you, then use the nesting principle, for example, to use the time filter. Filter search results according to their publication period and find out when a message was first published, for example.

6. Yes, we have a search engine!

A convenient way, provided that a specific topic has already been covered by us, is our search engine! At https://hoaxsearch.com/ you can search for hoaxes in the classic way using search terms.

If you don't see any results using different search terms, you can send a direct inquiry using our contact form .

Sources:

-Look
- This is how you can recognize fakes on the Internet
- psu-edu
- Digital learning content (video series)