fake news
What is fake news?
How has fake news been used historically?
What purposes does fake news serve?
fake news, false or deceptive stories presented as legitimate news content. Although exact definitions vary because of its various forms and purposes, fake news has existed for thousands of years, and its influence has been magnified by technological developments throughout history. While the phrase is often associated with the U.S. presidential election of 2016, examples of fake news can be traced to ancient Rome, the American Civil War, and a 1938 radio broadcast.
Definition
At its core, fake news is any false information being spread with the presentation of real news. The profile of such stories can include a combination of fabricated facts, made-up quotes, and fake sources, among other characteristics. Depending on its form, fake news can be either misinformation or disinformation. Misinformation is the unintentional dissemination of misleading or incorrect information, and disinformation is the deliberate spreading of lies for the express purpose of deception.
Contrary to how it has come to be used in the 21st century, fake news does not refer to news coverage that is merely negative or unsympathetic to a politician. During his first term in office, U.S. Pres. Donald Trump began using fake news to refer to any reporter, news report, or news outlet that painted him in a negative light. The frequency with which the phrase was used in this manner eclipsed its true meaning. Although a number of groups, including Facebook and the U.K. government, began to use alternative terms (false news and misinformation/disinformation, respectively) to refer to fake news to avoid confusion over differing definitions, the use of the phrase fake news as a weapon against unfavorable coverage remains a common mischaracterization.
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Purpose
Fake news may be created for a variety of purposes. Supporters of a political party may create and spread fake news to further their agenda, either by promoting their own side or disparaging the opposition. Others may spread false articles for economic incentives: Fake news often generates high numbers of views, a characteristic that may be taken advantage of to produce ad revenue. In the waning days of the 2016 presidential campaign, BuzzFeedâs media editor noticed a large number of political stories coming from dozens of fake news websites registered in a small town in Macedonia. With headlines such as âPope Francis Shocks World, Endorses Donald Trump for Presidentâ and âBREAKING: Obama Confirms Refusal to Leave White House, He Will Stay in Power!â these sites were profiting from the advertising revenue that their articles generated on social media sites, including Facebook. The fact that they were completely fabricated was beside the point.
Political regimes may utilize fake news in the form of propaganda to justify wars or sway public opinion. Antisemitic films, posters, and advertisements created by the Nazis are examples of this type of fake news.
Some forms of fake news are intended to entertain, not to deceive. Consider these headlines from the satire site The Onion:
- âWorld Death Rate Holding Steady at 100 Percentâ
- âKitten Thinks of Nothing But Murder All Dayâ
- âArchaeological Dig Uncovers Ancient Race of Skeleton Peopleâ
But even this type of content may be misinterpreted by some as truthful information.
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History
Disinformation, 1864 styleA pamphlet titled Miscegenation: The Theory of the Blending of the Races, Applied to the American White Man and Negro appeared to be a progressive publication promoting interracial marriage. Instead, it was a clever, but failed, hoax to discredit Pres. Abraham Lincoln and sabotage his reelection bid. The pamphlet's authors created the word miscegenation.- 1835: The Great Moon Hoax. The New York Sun published a six-part series chronicling life discovered on the Moon, including creatures that were human-bat hybrids.
- 1864: The Miscegenation Pamphlet. Two journalists at the New York World, a pro-slavery newspaper, anonymously published a pamphlet advocating for intermarriage between Black people and white people and thereby introduced the term miscegenation. It was intended to cast the Republican Party and Abraham Lincoln as abolitionist sympathizers.
- 1938: War of the Worlds. Orson Wellesâs radio adaptation of H.G. Wellsâs novel The War of the Worlds sounded like a news broadcast. For those who missed the disclaimer at the beginning of the show, it seemed like a Martian invasion was underway.
One of the earliest recorded examples of fake news was carried out by Octavian (later Augustus Caesar) during his rise to become the first Roman emperor. He conducted a propaganda campaign in the form of slander written on pamphlets and coins to damage his rival Mark Antonyâs reputation.
In the 15th century the invention of the Gutenberg printing press allowed for the mass distribution of writing, leading to the arrival of new forms of fake news across various cultures. Anonymous satirical writings called pasquinate (plural of pasquinata) were used to mock power brokers in Italy, and baseless rumors in France were termed canards. In his 1710 essay âThe Art of Political Lying,â satirist Jonathan Swift warned of the lasting dangers of misinformation: âFalsehood flies, and Truth comes limping after it; so that when men come to be undeceived, it is too late, the jest is over, and the tale has had its effect.â
The emergence of mass media and its ability to reach large audiences even more quickly brought about a new surge of potential for fake news. Fake radio broadcasts, such as CBS Radioâs broadcast of Orson Wellesâs The War of the Worlds adaptation in 1938, infamously caused panic for those who had missed the broadcastâs disclaimer. The ability to reach mass audiences attained new heights with the arrival of the Internet at the end of the 20th century. As noted above, fake websites that looked like legitimate news organizations became common, while social media provided the ability to share and spread fake news in a way that was as revolutionary as the printing press had been 500 years earlier.
The rich history of fake news coupled with an unprecedented delivery method created a perfect storm around the 2016 U.S. presidential election. Research found that in the days surrounding the election links to fake news sources shared on Twitter (now X) rivaled the number of links to legitimate sources but did not impinge on the consumption of hard news. In 2017 a combined report from the CIA, FBI, and NSA claimed that numerous Russian accounts had been linked to spreading fake news to influence the outcome of the election.
Effectiveness and countermeasures
The dangers of fake news arise from its ability to appeal to a number of cognitive biases. Confirmation bias, the tendency to search for and view evidence in a way that supports oneâs beliefs, makes individuals less likely to challenge fake news that appeals to their preexisting beliefs. Even when someone knows a news report is dubious, mere exposure to its contents increases later belief in the story because of its familiarity. Studies on this phenomenon, known as the illusory truth effect, illustrate the tendency to believe false information after repeated exposure. This tendency becomes especially dangerous when combined with misattribution, leading audiences to remember the core message of a fake news story without remembering the notably false context in which it was encountered.
Ways to counter fake news typically fall into two categories. First, individual-focused measures center on oneâs interpretation of fake news and typically involve forms of education on news literacy to improve recognition of fake news and prevent it from spreading. Second, structural changes focus on mechanisms to disrupt the spread of fake news, such as algorithms flagging potential fake news and programs that fact-check false information.
Many of the structural changes put in place in the wake of the 2016 election were rolled back in the 2020s. One of the first things Elon Musk did after buying Twitter (now X) was to eliminate the jobs of content moderators, whose role was to make sure that harmful content didnât appear on the platform. It has since switched to a content moderation system heavily reliant on artificial intelligence. In 2025, after Trump won his second term, Mark Zuckerberg announced that Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, would stop working with third-party content moderators. In a statement, he essentially said that the fact-checkers had gone too far:
After Trump first got elected in 2016, the legacy media wrote nonstop about how misinformation was a threat to democracy. We tried in good faith to address those concerns without becoming the arbiters of truth. But the fact-checkers have just been too politically biased and have destroyed more trust than theyâve created, especially in the U.S.
However, a 2025 Pew Research Center report found that roughly 8 in 10 adults in 35 countries surveyed considered fake news a âbig problemâ in their country. Almost 60 percent said it was a âvery big problem.â A 2024 Pew study in the U.S. found that 73 percent of U.S. adults said they had seen inaccurate news coverage of that yearâs presidential election.
Learn more
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