Fake News: Fact and Fiction from BBC

Learning English. In this series we're

looking at the fake news phenomenon,

what it is, where it comes from and how

we can fight it. Yes and we're also looking

at the language and vocabulary around

fake news so words and expressions that

you might hear or want to use when

discussing this hot topic. And in the

programme today how social media has

changed the fake news landscape. And I'll

be giving you some news about news.

We'll also try to understand what fake

news is and what it isn't. Now, Sam,

last time you talked about the word fake

what have you got for us today? Yeah so

today I'm talking about the word news so

where do you think that word comes

from, Hugo? It may be an acronym like

the first letters from north, east, west and

south like the points of the compass?

Very good.

That's a good guess and you're not alone

in thinking that but let's find out if

you're right. Here's something I recorded

earlier.

News, news, news, news is all

around me. Wherever you get yours from,

where does the word itself come from?

Is it an acronym for north, east, west and

south? Nope.

Does it stand for notable events, weather

and sports? Nope again. Does it simply

mean things that are new? Yes. It comes

from the late 1300s from the French word

nouvelle. News is simply new information

about something that has happened. It's

unusual in English because the word new

is an adjective, but news is not an

adjective, it's a noun, an uncountable

noun, and even though it has an S, it's

singular. So news is good or bad.

We have several expressions in English

using the word news, for example, 'no

news is good news', which basically

means

if you haven't heard anything, there are

no problems. 'That's news to me', I didn't

know that. 'Breaking news',

new news, something very important that

has recently happened, and 'if you break

the news' you are the person who passes

the news on, but, if you do break the

news, make sure it's not fake news.

That's really interesting and a lot of

that was news to me. Ah, very good,

Hugo, I see what

you did there. And what about you, Sam,

where do

you get your news from? Honestly truly I

mostly get it from the BBC News app.

That goes without saying - obviously -

yeah I also get

my news from the BBC but I find it

really important to get you know news

from different sources because you can

always get different voices and

different takes on what is happening. So

we know about the word fake and the

word news - put them together and you'll

get fake news but what does it actually

mean? Here's the BBC's Media Editor

Amol Rajan.

Fake news is lies and propaganda told for

a political or commercial purpose which

deploys digital technology,

social media, new networks to go viral to

reach around the world and influence

millions of people very very quickly.

So fake news

is information that isn't true and the

reason might be political or commercial,

to change opinion or make money. Yes so

I'd like to talk about one of the words

that Amol used - the word propaganda.

So this comes up a lot when talking

about this topic and let's just check

that we know what it means before we

move forward, so propaganda is a noun

and it describes information which is put

out for political reasons to get support

for a political party or a political

cause and it's designed to promote a

particular agenda, so to persuade people

to think a particular way or make people

support a particular policy. Propaganda

isn't always completely fake, but it's

often very one-sided and unbalanced and

may mix lies and the truth. So I guess

that's one of the challenges of being a

journalist, Hugo, is making sure that

you can actually determine what is true

and what isn't. Yeah it's a big challenge

and it's not made easier by social media.

Amol mentioned that digital technologies

and social media are tools used to spread

fake news but what is the problem here?

Let's get more about that, so earlier we

put some questions to today's expert

guest.

Hi my name is Samantha Bradshaw. I'm a

researcher at the Oxford Internet Institute

and I study how

disinformation affects democracy. Fake

news

has been around for as long as we've had

the printing press, so there's nothing

necessarily new about fake news. The

ways in which digital technologies can

enhance the spread and the precision of

these kinds of stories is something that

is new. So fake news on social media can

spread much more quickly and to many

more people because the flow of

information is very free compared to in

the past where we had journalists,

editors, TV channels controlling the flow

of information and what would or would

not get published. Today anybody with a

keyboard can essentially be a publisher.

Lots of interesting stuff there. Yes so

the first thing I noticed is that she

used the word disinformation and that

is often used to describe kinds of fake

news or false information that is

deliberately published and spread. She

also made the point that fake news, as we

know, is not new but it's always been

around but with social media and the

digital world it's allowed to spread

further and faster and without it being

controlled by traditional broadcasters

and publishers. So, now I know there's a

problem there obviously but doesn't this

also mean that there's now a bit more of

a democracy of information? Isn't it a

good thing that we don't only have these

traditional sources particularly if

those sources are government run or run

by one particularly powerful individual?

That's a very good point because if you

remember what happened during the

Arab Spring in the Middle East or even

protests in Iran and in many other

countries around the world social media

gave people a very important tool to

express themselves and well basically

journalists got to know what was

happening because of that - because

they weren't allowed in the country in

some cases - absolutely. The difference

here is that maybe those people who are

publishing these you know

this kind of information they don't go

through all the checks that we working

for mainstream media or traditional news

organisations have to go through which

is we interview people, we check the

facts, we recheck the facts to make sure

that everything is accurate. Of course we

make mistakes but when we do we

acknowledge them and correct them.

Yeah and also Samantha said anyone can

be a publisher so there's lots of people

out there sharing stories putting stories

out onto social media but they may not

have the knowledge or the resources to

check whether those are real stories and

therefore some of the stuff out there

might be inaccurate, it hasn't been

checked by anyone. Yeah there's a

famous saying which goes: A lie can get

halfway around the world before the truth

has got its pants on. Well I think these

days I can get all the way around the

world before the truth has even woken up

and what makes it even more challenging

is when people have been told not to

trust mainstream media. Hmm is this

what you mean? Let's have a look.

It's totally fake news - fake news - fake

news - you are fake news - it was fake

news. Thank you.

Yes the American President gets a lot of

criticism from

mainstream media. He says that has

been

an unfair attack on him. He uses the

phrase fake news when talking about

news that he doesn't like, that he doesn't

find convenient and when one of the most

powerful politicians in the world

accuses the mainstream media of being

fake news, that's a problem. Here's Amol

again. A lot of politicians or people in

the public eye have started to use the

words fake news or the phrase fake news

to basically describe news that they

don't like. If you're a politician who

wants to close down debate then you

might use the phrase fake news because

you don't want people to ask you

questions about something

uncomfortable so it's really important that

we're clear about what fake news does

and doesn't mean.

So it seems that the most

famous user of the phrase fake news

perhaps the person who's made it as

famous as saying as it is actually uses

it to mean something completely

different from the rest of us. Indeed.

Well to be clear when we're talking

about fake news we mean false

information, information that is not true

or not correct but which is published

and shared particularly on social media.

Well it's about time we wrapped up this

programme - Sam remind us of some of

today's key

vocabulary. Absolutely, of course. So we

learned that the word news comes from

the French word nouvelle and although it

has an S at the end it is not plural

it's an uncountable noun, so it's

always singular. We can say 'that's news

to me' if we find something out that we

didn't know before. 'No news is good

news' is an expression which means that

the lack of news probably means

everything's fine everything's OK because

if something bad had happened we

probably would have been told. 'Breaking

news' is new news, so something

important, and 'to

break the news' is to be the person who

gives the information to someone.

Propaganda is political information

which could be false or very one-sided

information and then we also had

disinformation which is a term for false

news, false stories that are spread

deliberately. Mainstream media refers to

traditional and established news

broadcasters and publishers just like

the BBC for example. Thank you, Sam,

and thank you for watching. Do join us

again next time for Fake News: Fact and

Fiction. Goodbye. Goodbye.