Is it in the news? Or just fake news?

Key vocabulary

no news is good news
everything is OK, probably

that's news to me
I didn't know that

breaking news
new news

to break the news
to pass on news to someone

"Fake news" was not a term many people used 18 months ago, but it is now seen as one of the greatest threats to democracy, free debate and the Western order. It has been named the word of the year, raised tensions between nations, and may lead to regulation of social media. And yet, nobody can agree on what it is, how much of a problem it is, and what to do about it.

Governments and powerful individuals have used information as a weapon for millennia, to boost their support. From a campaign of disinformation to aid victory in the final war of the Roman Republic to the 20th century, different forms of communication have been by governments. Added to that, as populations became more used to mass communication, they could more easily see through it.

 Before the internet, it was much more expensive to distribute information, building up trust took years, and there were much simpler definitions of what constituted news and media, making regulation or self-regulation easier. But the rise of social media has broken down many of the boundaries that prevented fake news from spreading in democracies. In particular it has allowed anyone to create and disseminate information.

Facebook and Twitter allowed people to exchange information on a much greater scale than ever before, while publishing platforms like WordPress allowed anyone to create a dynamic website with ease. In short, the barriers to creating fake news have been undone.

After widespread criticism that the companies are failing to deal with fake news, Twitter, Facebook and Google have all announced measures to crack down on misinformation online. Facebook, which has faced the most scrutiny, says it is enlisting fact checkers to flag stories, cutting off advertising to fake news sites, and better reviewing adverts on the site. Twitter says it has become better at dealing with bots, and Google has promised better algorithms to police YouTube.

However, critics continue to argue that not enough is being done, and that the tech companies are reluctant to take action, for fear of being seen as biased.

Spotting fake news isn't easy: a Stanford study last year found that students were shockingly bad at distinguishing between different types of material online, whether paid for, fake or legitimate. Facebook has a useful list of ways to spot fake news, which include checking other sources and a site's URL.

Adapted from The Telegraph