Fake news
fake news – sostantivo non numerabile
The issue of fake news on social media has been grabbing headlines, but how do these sites make money?
The hackers who planted fake news stories on Reuter’s website weren’t doing it for fun.
In a heated exchange between Newsnight’s Evan Davis and an aide to President Trump, both the presenter and the BBC were accused of fake news.
Trump said it was his opinion that “many of the leaks coming out of the White House are fabricated lies made up by the #FakeNews media”.
In un certo senso le fake news non sono niente di nuovo: da sempre circolano notizie e informazioni false sui mass media, le bufale, per intenderci; così com’è sempre esistita la connotazione negativa di propaganda elettorale. Il termine fake news in inglese è stato usato inizialmente per riferirsi a notizie fasulle, diffuse prinicpalmente sui social o hackerando siti di organi di stampa genuini, per mettere in cattiva luce un candidato politico a tutto vantaggio di un altro.
C’è da dire che l’elezione di Donald Trump alla presidenza degli Stati Uniti ha portato l’espressione all’attenzione del grande pubblico, dando origine a un dibattito allargato sulla diffusione delle notizie. È stato proprio Trump, nel corso della sua prima conferenza stampa da presidente, ad accusare i media tradizionali di inventare fake news su di lui, e da allora sia il presidente che il suo staff hanno continuato a lanciare l’accusa su Twitter e nel corso di interventi pubblici.
Ovviamente le fake news sono cosa ben diversa dalla satira, il cui scopo è quello di divertire e non di fuorviare o ingannare.
Origini del termine
Il termine fake news, formato dall’aggettivo fake e dal sostantivo news è in circolazione da anni; nonostante ciò non compare nel British National Corpus, realizzato negli anni ’90. La frequenza d’uso del termine ha registrato un’impennata dopo le elezioni presidenziali americane del 2016.
Traduzione di Loredana Riu
fake news – noun U
The issue of fake news on social media has been grabbing headlines, but how do these sites make money?
The hackers who planted fake news stories on Reuter’s website weren’t doing it for fun.
In a heated exchange between Newsnight’s Evan Davis and an aide to President Trump, both the presenter and the BBC were accused of fake news.
Trump said it was his opinion that “many of the leaks coming out of the White House are fabricated lies made up by the #FakeNews media”.
There is a sense in which fake news has been with us for as long as information has been disseminated through mass media and indeed much longer; politicians have used propaganda to damage their opponents and boost their own support ever since people first engaged in politics. The term fake news was initially used about untrue stories designed to help one candidate in an election while damaging another, and spread through social media sites or by hacking the sites of bona fide news organizations.
As in other cases, however, the election of Donald Trump as US President has pushed the term to the forefront of public attention and discussion. It was the President-elect himself who in the course of his first press conference accused the mainstream media of producing fake news about him, and since then he and his staff have continued to make the same accusation on Twitter as well as in public appearances.
Although the lines can sometimes be blurry, fake news should be distinguished from satire, whose intention is to amuse rather than to mislead or deceive.
Origins
Fake news is a transparent compound consisting of the adjective fake and the noun news. The term has been around for some years, although it does not appear even once in the British National Corpus which was built in the early 1990s. Its use has spiked since the 2016 US Presidential election.
