By David Barnett

W hen the RMS Titanic hit an iceberg on the night of 14 April 1912， the crew of the ship used telegraphy technology to not only call for help but to provide updates on the situation in the Atlantic Ocean.1 Unverified and unsigned telegrams were dispatched to Fleet Street.2 Newspapers duly reported that everything was under control and the Titanic， deemed to be unsinkable， was going to survive its brush with catastrophe.3

Those on board the vessel4， however， were not so confident. The press was unable to keep up with what was a rapidly developing situation， going only with the information they had to hand. The effect was one of the earliest examples of what some might call “fake news”.

In November 2017， “fake news” was named Collins Dictionarys5 word of the year. It defines the expression as “false， often sensational， information disseminated under the guise of news reporting”.6 Its usage， according to Collins， has increased 365% in 2016.

However， fake news is far more nuanced7 than that. “What we refer to now as fake news has been around ever since human communication began，” says OShea， the senior manager of fake news exhibitions in 2017 at the National Science and Media Museum. “We still talk of gossips and whispers， when the meaning of something is altered or lost through retellings，or shaggy-dog stories， tall tales that have been added to or exaggerated.8 Stories have always been embellished in certain ways to push a particular agenda.”9

But the modern understanding of fake news deals more with the technology that is behind our media， adds OShea. “Theres something fundamentally new... the infrastructure of the internet， overlaid with platforms such as Facebook， Twitter， Buzzfeed... have come together to carve out a media which is not the media we were accustomed to in the 20th century”.10 All this new technology and media， he says， has been “mashed up with some pretty potent political and social events in the past few years， which has created what I see as a perfect storm for fake news.”11

Therere five factors which contribute to the spread of fake news： political gain； misreporting； going viral； financial gain； and“not letting the truth get in the way of a good story”.12

The Titanic disaster is a prime example of misreporting， which does not have to be malicious in intent.13 The museum has worked with the Peace Studies department at the University of Bradford， contributing papers from its archive showing that telegrams stating that all the passengers from the Titanic had been rescued were reported as fact in newspapers， before the full extent of the tragedy came to light.14

“That was more than 100 years ago and this situation has accelerated so much today，” says OShea. Social media was abuzz with theories， witness accounts and first-hand reports，15 many of which were taken up by the mainstream media.

The problem with unverified stories being shared， even with the best intentions， is it creates a fog of misinformation. “People want to help in a situation like that，” says OShea， “and often all they can do is share social media posts. But if those posts are later discredited or proved unfounded，16 and have been picked up by mainstream media， then people begin to distrust the media.”

Going viral is another defining trait of fake news. In the early 20th century it took years rather than seconds but the principle was the same： people shared the photographs around， not checking the veracity of them， either wanting to believe they were real， or just because they were a novelty.17

Its long been believed that the motto of Fleet Street was“never let the facts get in the way of a good story”， illustrated by a news story earlier in 2017 that Jeremy Corbyn had refused to bow his head to the Queen at the state opening of Parliament.18 It was accompanied by photos and videos of the apparent snub； only later did it emerge that protocol doesnt require bowing to the Queen in these situations，19 but that didnt matter， the story was already out.

The final two criteria20 for a story to be fake news often go hand in hand： as a political tool， and must to make profit. For one of the many examples of the first， there was the row in January， 2017 at Donald Trumps inauguration when Sean Spicer， the former White House press secretary， claimed the turnout had been the largest ever for such an event.21 This was duly reported， until social media users compared the photos with those of Barack Obamas inauguration in 2009.

And staging fake news for profit is exemplified particularly well by the Macedonian town of Veles which， in 2016， was the base for more than 100 websites publishing plagiarised news of the US elections.22 How does that make money？ Easier than youd think. It took only a relatively few people to click on the stories before the algorithms operated by social media sites such as Facebook kicked in； if I click on a story， Facebook will decide that you might like it also， and nudge you towards it.23 And if you read it， then your friends might also be interested. Before long these Macedonian websites with stolen news were clocking up24 astonishing hits， which then attracted Google ads， earning the website owners a nice profit.

The good news is a number of new media organisations are trying to encourage us to think about where news comes from， who puts it out， and whether anyone can gain politically， financially or ideologically by it， before we share it around social media and thus give it a sheen of respectability and trustworthiness.25

But we live in a fast-moving world. People have been conditioned to trust the press in the past， which is why we blithely26 share stories. But that trust is crumbling27， especially among younger people who do not have the tradition of reading a daily newspaper. The emergence of news platforms where the line between journalism and people simply sharing what they believe is—or want to be—true is blurring so much that fact and fiction are often indistinguishable.28

1. RMS Titanic： 皇家郵輪泰坦尼克號(hào)，此名稱的由來是，在遠(yuǎn)洋郵輪盛行時(shí)，所有英國的大型郵輪均屬于英國皇家，因此在船名前加上“Royal Mail Steamship（皇家郵船）”，RMS是其縮寫；telegraphy： 電報(bào)系統(tǒng)。

2. unverified： 未經(jīng)核實(shí)的；unsigned： 未簽名的；dispatch： 發(fā)送；Fleet Street：（英國倫敦的）弗利特街，又名艦隊(duì)街，以報(bào)館集中而著稱。

3. brush with： 短暫的歷險(xiǎn)，不愉快的小接觸；catastrophe： 大災(zāi)難。

4. vessel： 船，艦。

5. Collins Dictionary： 《柯林斯詞典》，是美國權(quán)威的英語詞典。

6. 它將該詞定義為“假借新聞報(bào)道形式傳播的錯(cuò)誤虛假、聳人聽聞的信息”。sensational： 引起轟動(dòng)的，聳人聽聞的；disseminate： 散布，傳播；under the guise of： 在……的偽裝下。

7. nuanced： 微妙的，有細(xì)微差別的。

8. shaggy-dog story： 冗長的笑話（結(jié)尾通常很無聊，令人失望）；tall tale： 離奇故事，天方夜譚。

9. embellish： 給（故事）潤色；agenda：秘密計(jì)劃，秘密目標(biāo)。

10. infrastructure： 基礎(chǔ)設(shè)施；be overlaid with： 用……覆蓋；Buzzfeed： 美國的新聞聚合網(wǎng)站，提供當(dāng)天網(wǎng)上的最熱門事件；carve out： 開辟出。

11. 他表示，在過去幾年里，所有這些新技術(shù)和新媒體“都和強(qiáng)有力的政治、社會(huì)事件融匯在一起，產(chǎn)生了我所認(rèn)為的假新聞的完美風(fēng)暴”（指假新聞鋪天蓋地席卷而來）。mash up： 搗爛，搗碎。

12. 假新聞傳播的背后有五大因素：政治利益、報(bào)道失實(shí)、病毒式傳播、經(jīng)濟(jì)利益，以及“不要讓事實(shí)真相妨礙一個(gè)好故事”。

13. a prime example： 非常典型的例子；malicious： 蓄意的，惡意的。

14. Peace Studies： 和平學(xué)，興起于二戰(zhàn)后的西方，是一門跨政治學(xué)、社會(huì)學(xué)、經(jīng)濟(jì)學(xué)、人類學(xué)及心理學(xué)等領(lǐng)域的應(yīng)用學(xué)科，以科學(xué)的方式來研究如何獲致和平；archive： 檔案，檔案館；come to light： 曝光，真相大白。

15. abuzz： 喧鬧的，騷動(dòng)的；witness account： 目擊者的敘述。

16. discredit： 使不可信，使人質(zhì)疑；unfounded： 沒有事實(shí)根據(jù)的。

17. veracity： 真實(shí)性；novelty： 新奇事物。

18. Jeremy Corbyn： 杰里米·科爾賓（1949— ），英國工黨領(lǐng)袖；bow ones head： 低頭；state opening of Parliament： 英國國會(huì)開幕大典。

19. snub：（言行的）冷落，怠慢；protocol：禮儀，禮節(jié)。

20. criteria： 標(biāo)準(zhǔn)（criterion的復(fù)數(shù)）。

21. row： 騷動(dòng)，糾紛；inauguration：就職典禮；turnout： 出席人數(shù)。

22. stage： 籌劃；Macedonian town of Veles： 馬其頓的韋萊斯鎮(zhèn)；plagiarised：剽竊的，抄襲的。（備注：在2016年美國大選的最后幾個(gè)星期，據(jù)《衛(wèi)報(bào)》和BuzzFeed網(wǎng)站揭露，人口僅5.5萬的馬其頓韋萊斯鎮(zhèn)竟注冊(cè)了一百多家支持特朗普的網(wǎng)站，其中許多網(wǎng)站上充斥著聳人聽聞的假新聞。其中關(guān)注量最高的兩條“新聞”，一條聲稱希拉里即將受到刑事訴訟，另一條說羅馬教皇認(rèn)可了特朗普。網(wǎng)站充足的訪問流量也使它們從“谷歌AdSense”等自動(dòng)廣告引擎中撈到不少油水。）

23. algorithm： [計(jì)]算法；kick in：開始生效；nudge： 輕推。

24. clock up： 贏得。

25. ideologically： 思想上，意識(shí)形態(tài)上；sheen：光彩，光輝。

26. blithely： // 漫不經(jīng)心地。

27. crumble： 瓦解，破碎。

28. 這些新興的新聞平臺(tái)的出現(xiàn)使得新聞事實(shí)報(bào)道與人們分享的他們相信或希望是真實(shí)的東西之間的界限變得如此模糊，以至于真假往往難以辨別。indistinguishable： 不能區(qū)分的。