WeChat: How Chinese students consume (fake) news in Australia

The Fake News epidemic in Australia is not exclusive to western social media sites such as Facebook. WeChat, the Chinese social media behemoth, has a strong presence in Australia among international students from China of which there are almost 200,000 each year.

Chinese students who are unable to read local English language use WeChat as their primary source of news. The revenue model is similar to Facebook- the higher the views the higher the potential for advertising income. This results in the production of sensationalised fake news with themes of nationalism.

Australian Red Scarf is one of the most popular WeChat pages in Australia. The site claims to translate Australian news for a Chinese audience. However it is filled with exaggeration, opinion memes and attention grabbing headlines making it a source of Fake News.

Three top fake news stories are:

1. Not only have the nuclear test areas been polluted, but every city of the Australian east coast is facing a nuclear crisis

2. Breaking! ISIS officially announced their Australian attack! Many famous locations in Sydney and Melbourne targeted

3. White Australia Policy is Back

-Jake

Sport in Australia: The AFL’s fight against Fake News

The Australian Football League is urging playing to call out ‘fake news’ in AFL media.

As celebrities in Australia, players of the AFL are under constant media scrutiny for their behavior, attitudes and actions on and off the field. Fake News surrounding their professional careers and their personal lives can bear a heavy toll on a player’s mental health. In the 2017 season Travis Cloke, Tom Boyd and Alex Fasolo all took time out from the game because of mental health struggles, partially attributing the decision to what they had seen on social media.

The AFL Players Association has encouraged players to respectfully combat inaccurate stories by calling out factual errors or what they considered to be unfair reporting. While players were discouraged to contact journalists directly, avenues were given to them to voice their side of the story to internal media outlet.

CEO Gillon McLachlan believes players would be better off staying away from social media all together. Is this a realistic request in the modern digital age?

This is just one of the many examples of real-life consequences that fake news can bring.

-Jake

Fake News and Safety Warnings: Why You Should Be Alarmed

There is an infinite amount of blogs issuing warnings, advice and tips on health and safety. With so much of this information being unsubstantiated viewers face the Fake News Dilemma: I Don’t Know What To Believe.

 

 

For the most part, this dilemma is encountered with celebrity gossip or sensationalized politics. However, the case study of the Hawaii Missile Alert can be seen as an example whereby the Fake News Dilemma resulted in total inaction by the public to a potentially real threat.

In 2018, the state department of Hawaii issued a warning:

 

The alert was a mistake by someone pressing the wrong button. More interesting is the public reaction. Some Hawaiians went into panic mode while others waited for further confirmation. The fact that many people did not believe the alert was real can be attributed to the rise of Fake News. They didn’t know if it was a joke, a stunt or in fact a real missile threat.Thus the Fake News phenomena impacts the ability of governments to communicate to their citizens in times of crisis. With so much misinformation circulating people become skeptical of everything including what is real; as seen in the case study of Hawaii.

-Jake

Fake News: From Democracy to Dictatorship

What do Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and U.S. President Donald Trump all have in common?

They label unfavourable press “Fake News”

The term Fake News was popularized by U.S. President Donald Trump as a way to attack and dismiss unfavourable press coverage. Both the term and the associated tactic of its implementation have since been adopted by authoritarian leaders the world over.

Attacking the press is not new to dictatorships. In fact, control of national media is a pillar authoritarian control exercised by infamous governments including the NAZI party in Germany.

Freedom of expression is a principle of democracy, which stipulates the importance of a free press. The use of a dictatorial technique by a democratic nation raises questions over the integrity of its office.

See below 5 examples of world leaders who now use Fake News to discredit the press:

1) Syrian President Bashar al-Assad

Quote: “You can forge anything these days. We are living in a fake-news era.”

2) Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro

Quote: The media “spread lots of false versions, lots of lies. This is what we call ‘fake news’ today, isn’t it? The era of post-truth.”

3) U Kyaw San Hla, Burma State Officer

Quote: “There is no such thing as Rohingya. It is fake news.”

4) Spanish Foreign Minister Alfonso Dastis

Quote: “I am not saying that all are fake pictures, but some of them are and there have been a lot of alternative facts and fake news.”

5) U.S. President Donald Trump

Quote: “You areFake News”

-Jake

 

3 ways to spot a Fake Image

Image manipulation is common practice in the creation of fake news. Images are powerful messaging tools that serve as a mental shortcuts for the human brain.

Journalists use fake images to exaggerate situations and sensationalise news.

Here are three ways to assess the validity of an image:

 

1. 1. Use a reverse image search

 

A reverse image search will reveal whether the image has been taken from another website or modified. See below a fake photo of Vladimir Putin sitting powerfully surrounded by other world leaders.

2. Check the shadows

If people or objects have been inserted into images their shadows will not match the other objects in the frame. Using a ruler and pencil, rule a line from a point on an object to a corresponding point on the shadow and compare the lines to spot the inserted image.

Steps:

• Right click on the image.
• Select Copy image address.
• Go to Google and select Images from the top right corner.
• You will get the Google Search box with a camera icon.  Click on the camera icon,and paste the image address in the Paste image URL box.
• This will bring up a list of results showing where that image has been published on the internet.

3. Use fact checking websites

Snopes, Factcheck.org, or PolitiFact are three good options.

See article below by Snopes of a shark that has been inserted into a flooded street to sensationalise the flood.

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/pool-shark/

-Jake

 

 

 

 

 

Fake News, What is it?

Fake News is the deliberate spreading of false information through the mainstream media. It most commonly manifests itself in sensationalised news that has not been fact checked. The result is the spreading of untrue ideas, which, if given enough attention, can become true in the minds of the masses.

American President Donald Trump made the term famous when he used it to attack journalists that challenged, opposed or disagreed with him during his election campaign of 2016. Trump continues to vilify the media describing them as “disgusting”. (see article below)

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2018/aug/03/trump-whips-up-crowd-anger-as-he-vilifies-media

Consumers of media must be vigilant in fact checking their news. Being critical of the information you are receiving is important to upholding the truth and not allowing fake news to dominate the screens.Below is an article titled, How to Spot Fake News which offers advice on how to astutely navigate the media sphere.

https://www.factcheck.org/2016/11/how-to-spot-fake-news/

Jake