Dr Nishant A.Irudayadason
Professor of Philosophy and Ethics, Jnana-Deepa Vidyapeeth, Pune.

The term “fake news” has flourished in recent months to designate deliberately false information circulating in the media or social networks. Fake news is part of a global phenomenon and its impact is global. Politicians, business stars, companies, and institutions are often victims, as are some individuals. Fake news is deliberately disseminating false information on media by an organized group or an individual. It can be a simple hoax but it also participates in disinformation attempting to mislead the receiver to obtain a financial or political advantage from him. Claire Wardle of the First Draft Partner Network in New York has established a typology of “fake news,” which ranges from bad journalism to propaganda and parody.
“Fake news” is nothing new, but has grown on an unprecedented scale in recent times due to the place taken by social networks in the information market. One of the most famous examples of “fake news” remains Orson Wells’ radio hoax, The War of the Worlds, broadcast on October 30, 1938. For tens of thousands of listeners, this program really announced the landing of a horde of aggressive Martians on Earth. This show caused panic across the United States even if it was exaggerated compared to what happened. But in the fall of 2016, on the occasion of the US presidential election, the use of the term exploded if we accept the query surge for the keyword “fake news” in Google’s search engine.
This fake news can have several purposes and come from different origins. There are those who produce and disseminate “fake news” for ideological or political reasons. “Fake news” is developed by political parties or, more secretly, by agencies on behalf of their clients, in particular, to influence elections. There were many examples of this during the American presidential campaign since 2016 or during the last two Indian parliamentary elections. “Fake news” is also one of the instruments of modern warfare. The Russians are the champions. There are also people who spread “fake news” for a purely commercial purpose, to make money. “Fake news” can thus be designed as a “click bait” to attract the consultations of Internet users and increase the advertising revenue of a web page. They are sometimes used in email phishing, presenting highly attractive or sensationalist content to trick users into clicking on a link, which then allows the sender to infect their computer.
“Fake news” has always existed, but its impact is amplified with the development of social networks. Facebook’s news feeds have been implicated in the spread of fake news. But the mainstream media are often complicit in that they, too, can fall into the trap of spreading fake news for political reasons in some cases but more often for purely commercial reasons. “Fake news” is indeed developing in a context where the traditional media are experiencing a deep crisis: an economic crisis with the decline in advertising resources and the number of readers, crisis of confidence between readers and journalists. In India, well-informed people hardly believe that journalists are independent. Faced with its economic difficulties and in order to increase the number of their readers or listeners, the major media, especially the press and television are tempted to take up as quickly as possible information that can cause a sensation or to launch a false scoop when its authenticity has not been checked. This is how bad news chases good news and fake news drives out real news.
In this context, we understand that society and our politicians are wondering about this cancer of information that “fake news” represents and want to react. In reality, fighting fake news is difficult. To talk about them, even to deny them, is also to contribute to spreading them. Moreover, the identification of “fake news” raises the important question of who can objectively determine what is true and what is false. The fight against “fake news” provokes opposition. Wouldn’t some governments be tempted to use the fight against “fake news” as a pretext to silence opposition political forces? Everyone agrees to denounce the danger but there is no agreement on how to combat the phenomenon.