{"id":11890,"date":"2018-04-17T11:26:39","date_gmt":"2018-04-17T16:26:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sites.law.duq.edu\/juris\/?p=11890"},"modified":"2018-05-10T17:07:42","modified_gmt":"2018-05-10T22:07:42","slug":"a-new-information-age-fake-news-and-the-power-of-narrative","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.law.duq.edu\/juris\/2018\/04\/17\/a-new-information-age-fake-news-and-the-power-of-narrative\/","title":{"rendered":"A New Information Age: \u2018Fake News\u2019 and the Power of Narrative"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_11891\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-11891\" style=\"width: 525px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-11891\" src=\"http:\/\/sites.law.duq.edu\/juris\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/clem-onojeghuo-143466-unsplash-1024x683.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"525\" height=\"350\" srcset=\"https:\/\/sites.law.duq.edu\/juris\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/clem-onojeghuo-143466-unsplash-1024x683.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/sites.law.duq.edu\/juris\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/clem-onojeghuo-143466-unsplash-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/sites.law.duq.edu\/juris\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/clem-onojeghuo-143466-unsplash-768x512.jpg 768w, https:\/\/sites.law.duq.edu\/juris\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/clem-onojeghuo-143466-unsplash-83x55.jpg 83w, https:\/\/sites.law.duq.edu\/juris\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/clem-onojeghuo-143466-unsplash-1600x1067.jpg 1600w, https:\/\/sites.law.duq.edu\/juris\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/clem-onojeghuo-143466-unsplash-800x533.jpg 800w, https:\/\/sites.law.duq.edu\/juris\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/clem-onojeghuo-143466-unsplash-580x387.jpg 580w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 525px) 100vw, 525px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-11891\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Photo by <a href=\"https:\/\/unsplash.com\/photos\/x7CDil50KKY\">Clem Onojeghuo<\/a> on <a href=\"https:\/\/unsplash.com\/\">Unsplash<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>By Nicole Prieto, Editor-in-Chief<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>In her surrealistic graphic novel <em>Temperance<\/em>,<a href=\"#_ftn1\" name=\"_ftnref1\"><sup>[1]<\/sup><\/a> Cathy Malkasian posits an unusual thought experiment: Can a community enclosed in a ship of stone \u2014 buoyed along a fictional sea of fire and convinced it is surrounded by \u201cenemies\u201d that do not exist \u2014 thrive unperturbed for 30 years?<\/p>\n<p>Accustomed to strict routine, the people of Blessedbowl do not question the impossibility of a stone ship setting sail from the lip of a grassy cliff, nor the absence of proof that great fires lick the hull of their immovable fortress. They do not question that they must wear hats at all times or that they must be wary of the full moon and birds (and the news they carry). Rather, they rely on the colorful morning dispatches reported by their absent leader\u2019s purported daughter, Minerva. She tells them of her Pa\u2019s war efforts against their unseen enemy and of his prophetic promises that, soon, the Blessedbowlers will join him in his final battle against their foe.<\/p>\n<p>But unknown to anyone, Pa\u2019s dispatches are lies. In tandem with her dramatic oration, they are part of Minerva\u2019s desperate ploy to keep the fabric of her people\u2019s lives from fraying apart in the wake of a world-shattering truth: Pa \u2014 who stole away the Blessedbowlers from distant lands through unfounded fears of a fire-stoking enemy, and who enlisted their hands in constructing the stone prison they now call home \u2014 had abandoned his nascent society on the eve of the Bowl\u2019s completion. Only Minerva knows that he left them to die in the wake of their ruined, former lives. And it is only through her stories that they have continued on despite it.<\/p>\n<p>Published in 2010, <em>Temperance<\/em> remains an apropos work in the decade since social media has transformed the way we consume and proliferate news.<a href=\"#_ftn2\" name=\"_ftnref2\"><sup>[2]<\/sup><\/a> \u201cFake news\u201d has not lost its accusatory power after the dust settled from the 2016 presidential elections. We continue to see headlines regarding the role of Russian trolls in sowing divisiveness among Americans through social media channels.<a href=\"#_ftn3\" name=\"_ftnref3\"><sup>[3]<\/sup><\/a> As major media outlets contend with public distrust,<a href=\"#_ftn4\" name=\"_ftnref4\"><sup>[4]<\/sup><\/a> online platforms abound for amplifying unvetted facts.<a href=\"#_ftn5\" name=\"_ftnref5\"><sup>[5]<\/sup><\/a> From indictments to public outcry, we have witnessed the consequences attendant to the unfettered spread of instantaneous information. The question remains how to address it all moving forward \u2014 and what the role of the media ought to be in making headway.<\/p>\n<p>Undoubtedly, the stories we tell ourselves matter; how and where we tell them can make all the difference. While fiction might not have literal answers to the social and legal challenges in our \u201ctoo much information\u201d age, it can perhaps serve as a window for approaching the problems underlying our complex relationship with media sources today.<\/p>\n<h4 style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>The Meaning of \u201cMedia\u201d<\/strong><\/h4>\n<p>Asking what \u201cmedia\u201d means is worth positing in an era where the lines between \u201creal\u201d and \u201cfake\u201d news \u2014 and the organizing forces behind them \u2014 remain in uncomfortable proximity in online spaces. The Oxford English Dictionary, simply, gives one sense of \u201cmedia\u201d as \u201c[t]he main means of mass communication, esp. newspapers, radio, and television, regarded collectively; the reporters, journalists, etc., working for organizations engaged in such communication.\u201d<a href=\"#_ftn6\" name=\"_ftnref6\"><sup>[6]<\/sup><\/a> Likewise, \u201csocial media\u201d refers to \u201cwebsites and applications which enable users to create and share content or to participate in social networking.\u201d<a href=\"#_ftn7\" name=\"_ftnref7\"><sup>[7]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n<p>For analogy, <em>New Yorker<\/em> writer Andrew Marantz likens \u201csocial media\u201d to a party:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Last year, the Supreme Court heard a case about whether it was constitutional to bar registered sex offenders from using social media. In order to answer that question, the Justices had to ask another question: What is social media? In sixty minutes of oral argument, Facebook was compared to a park, a playground, an airport terminal, a polling place, and a town square.<\/p>\n<p>It might be most helpful to compare a social network to a party. The party starts out small, with the hosts and a few of their friends. Then word gets out and strangers show up. People take cues from the environment.<a href=\"#_ftn8\" name=\"_ftnref8\"><sup>[8]<\/sup><\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>From this, it is easy to distinguish the role of social media giants from those of traditional media outlets: The former, whether as part of their built-in features<a href=\"#_ftn9\" name=\"_ftnref9\"><sup>[9]<\/sup><\/a> or at their users\u2019 discretion, can collect and share news information actually gathered by the latter. In effect, social media outsources journalistic responsibilities while still indirectly benefiting from reportage through increased user engagement. But while intentional disinformation is abhorrent to journalism and public trust, there are perhaps less severe implications for the platforms that do not present themselves as actual \u201cpublishers.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>As <em>TechCrunch<\/em> writer Natasha Lomas points out, employing people to make editorial decisions would make social media companies \u201cthe largest media organizations in the world\u201d \u2014 requiring not only \u201ctrained journalists to serve every market and local region they cover\u201d but also \u201cinvit[ing] regulation as publishers.\u201d<a href=\"#_ftn10\" name=\"_ftnref10\"><sup>[10]<\/sup><\/a> Still, Facebook\u2019s interest in sorting fake news from genuine reporting is a public relations issue that it has an interest in redressing \u2014 particularly in light of the fallout it has faced with the collection of private user data by Cambridge Analytica.<a href=\"#_ftn11\" name=\"_ftnref11\"><sup>[11]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n<p>The tension against the propagation of disinformation is not limited to social media; it implicates any content-generating platform with the potential for reaching an uninformed audience. The <em>New York Times<\/em> reported on YouTube\u2019s announced plan to utilize Wikipedia in fact-checking its video content in an effort to mitigate the impact of conspiracy theories, much to Wikipedia\u2019s own surprise.<a href=\"#_ftn12\" name=\"_ftnref12\"><sup>[12]<\/sup><\/a> The proposal presented another thorny issue: \u201cCan\u2019t anyone edit Wikipedia,\u201d writes John Herrman, \u201cincluding the conspiracy theorists themselves?\u201d<a href=\"#_ftn13\" name=\"_ftnref13\"><sup>[13]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n<p>YouTube relying on Wikipedia entries, in effect, would mean relying on the narratives crafted by whoever edited those pages. It would mean placing trust in whichever unvetted user decided to alter a given page \u2014 sometimes merely for humorous effect,<a href=\"#_ftn14\" name=\"_ftnref14\"><sup>[14]<\/sup><\/a> but perhaps also for malicious purposes. And much like the relationship between news reportage and social media platforms, the weight of <em>editorial<\/em> responsibility would seem to fall more on Wikipedia than YouTube itself.<\/p>\n<h4 style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>Mitigating Speech<\/strong><\/h4>\n<p>One brute force method of mitigating the impact of false speech is by deleting it entirely. Social media platforms\u2019 removal of offending content from their platforms is not exactly a violation of free speech as we understand it in the context of the First Amendment.<a href=\"#_ftn15\" name=\"_ftnref15\"><sup>[15]<\/sup><\/a> Simply put, Facebook is not the government.<a href=\"#_ftn16\" name=\"_ftnref16\"><sup>[16]<\/sup><\/a> The discretion to remove content is not only within the rights of a platform (and almost guaranteed to be somewhere in its published policies<a href=\"#_ftn17\" name=\"_ftnref17\"><sup>[17]<\/sup><\/a>), but it may also be necessary for its long-term self-preservation. Reddit, the billed \u201cfront page of the Internet,\u201d<a href=\"#_ftn18\" name=\"_ftnref18\"><sup>[18]<\/sup><\/a> decided to ban severely racist or violent subreddit communities, for instance, even if it meant running up against user backlash or accusations of speech suppression.<a href=\"#_ftn19\" name=\"_ftnref19\"><sup>[19]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe just took away the spaces where they liked to hang out,\u201d Reddit CEO Steve Huffman told <em>The New Yorker<\/em>, \u201cand went, \u2018Let\u2019s see if this helps.\u2019\u201d<a href=\"#_ftn20\" name=\"_ftnref20\"><sup>[20]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n<p>With respect to legal recourse, false information that leaves victims in its wake can result in civil or criminal liability, such as with torts or deceptive practices.<a href=\"#_ftn21\" name=\"_ftnref21\"><sup>[21]<\/sup><\/a> Setting discussions about elections interference aside, fake news may have severe real-world consequences beyond reputational or political damage. <em>Wired<\/em> recently reported that disinformation spread through WhatsApp has carried consequences in the sphere of public health, where \u201crumors of fatal vaccine reactions, mercury preservatives, and government conspiracies\u201d have interfered with the vaccination of Brazilians in the wake of a yellow fever outbreak.<a href=\"#_ftn22\" name=\"_ftnref22\"><sup>[22]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhatsApp is especially popular among middle and lower income individuals there, many of whom rely on it as their primary news consumption platform,\u201d writes Megan Molteni. \u201cBut as the country\u2019s health authorities scramble to contain the worst outbreak in decades, WhatsApp\u2019s misinformation trade threatens to go from destabilizing to deadly.\u201d<a href=\"#_ftn23\" name=\"_ftnref23\"><sup>[23]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Removing content or banning \u201cbad actors\u201d may not be catch-all solutions. At issue \u201care the core features of the technologies\u201d themselves, where perhaps the only foolproof solution is to either turn those features off or remove their availability to specific users. \u201cFiguring out which users fall into that category is a value judgment\u2014the type of value judgment that the libertarian ethos of tech companies has left them very reluctant to make,\u201d Molteni writes.<a href=\"#_ftn24\" name=\"_ftnref24\"><sup>[24]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Lomas criticizes social media algorithms that operate to purvey disinformation to begin with:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Social media\u2019s filtering and sorting algorithms also crucially failed to make any distinction between information and disinformation. Which was their great existential error of judgement, as they sought to eschew editorial responsibility while simultaneously working to dominate and crush traditional media outlets which do operate within a more tightly regulated environment (and, at least in some instances, have a civic mission to truthfully inform).<a href=\"#_ftn25\" name=\"_ftnref25\"><sup>[25]<\/sup><\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Increased legal regulations,<a href=\"#_ftn26\" name=\"_ftnref26\"><sup>[26]<\/sup><\/a> more internal access and content policing, and increased transparency in how social media algorithms operate<a href=\"#_ftn27\" name=\"_ftnref27\"><sup>[27]<\/sup><\/a> are among the calls to action for contending with the impact of fake news. Regulations proposed in Europe would even demand <em>more<\/em> than social media platforms\u2019 own transparency about advertising space purchasers, instead extending \u201ccollaboration between data protection authorities and other regulators to safeguard the rights and interests of individuals in the digital society.\u201d<a href=\"#_ftn28\" name=\"_ftnref28\"><sup>[28]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n<p>But the fruits of those efforts, if realized, are bound to take time. For now, consumers are left with the task of self-evaluating the information displayed on dashes, feeds, timelines, or even our private messages. This is certainly a challenge in a digital age where stepping away from our phones is hardly practical solely to avoid false information.<\/p>\n<p>Perhaps one solution is to treat shared news much like suspicious spam emails, where we subconsciously know that an errant click or tap could wreak havoc on our devices if we fail to pay attention to warning signs like blatant misspellings or suspicious sender information.<a href=\"#_ftn29\" name=\"_ftnref29\"><sup>[29]<\/sup><\/a> But with fake news, we are not contending with a temporary misrepresentation that could threaten ransomware installation; we are fighting against the long-term effects of disinformation on our very psychology as human beings.<\/p>\n<h4 style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>The Power of Narrative<\/strong><\/h4>\n<p>The power of confirmation bias is overwhelming. In one Stanford study, two groups of students with opposing views about capital punishment and its effect on crime deterrence were presented with two sets of fake studies: \u201cOne provided data in support of the deterrence argument, and the other provided data that called it into question.\u201d<a href=\"#_ftn30\" name=\"_ftnref30\"><sup>[30]<\/sup><\/a> Both rated the credibility of either set in accordance with their extant views, and their evaluation of capital punishment remained unchanged. \u201cThose who\u2019d started out pro-capital punishment,\u201d writes Elizabeth Kolbert, \u201cwere now even more in favor it; those who\u2019d opposed it were even more hostile.\u201d<a href=\"#_ftn31\" name=\"_ftnref31\"><sup>[31]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Father-daughter duo Jack and Sara Gorman, a psychiatrist and public-health specialist, respectively, \u201ccit[ed] research suggesting that people experience genuine pleasure\u2014a rush of dopamine\u2014when processing information that supports their beliefs.\u201d<a href=\"#_ftn32\" name=\"_ftnref32\"><sup>[32]<\/sup><\/a> And we do not seem amenable to accepting more \u201caccurate information\u201d that runs counter to our beliefs.<a href=\"#_ftn33\" name=\"_ftnref33\"><sup>[33]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n<p>In this respect, Malkasian\u2019s work is informative. In <em>Temperance<\/em>, Minerva\u2019s walled off society subsists on her lies, closed off from knowledge of the consequences of the burning world Pa has left in his wake <em>and<\/em> from the knowledge contained in an expansive library hidden away from his destruction. She exists as the sole news source for her people, who have no choice but to indulge in confirmation bias amongst themselves with respect to the exceptionalism of their society; the alternative would seem to be the anarchic collapse of everything they built over decades of ignorance.<\/p>\n<p>The resolution involves Minerva seeking escape from Blessedbowl\u2019s towering walls (and to unveil the truth), and from the library literally breaching the fortress through the efforts of the graphic novel\u2019s silent, observant protagonist: a wooden doll named Temperance. The book does not give us an epilogue about what happens after the vestiges of truth have unceremoniously broken down the Blessedbowlers\u2019 walls. We are presented with an interesting situation: Minerva \u2014 the only conduit between her people and the outside world \u2014 comes face to face with resources that would allow her to arm herself and others with the truth. Minerva may perhaps find a way to effect a change in the narrative she constructed about their world.<\/p>\n<p>As Kolbert writes on the Gormans\u2019 research: \u201cAppealing to [our] emotions may work better, but doing so is obviously antithetical to the goal of promoting sound science. \u2018The challenge that remains,\u2019 they write toward the end of their book, \u2018is to figure out how to address the tendencies that lead to false scientific belief.\u2019\u201d<a href=\"#_ftn34\" name=\"_ftnref34\"><sup>[34]<\/sup><\/a> Also significant is the very influence of technology on the way our brains can process information.<a href=\"#_ftn35\" name=\"_ftnref35\"><sup>[35]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n<p>One lesson from <em>Temperance<\/em> is that what we tell ourselves, and how we tell it, plays a major role in what we are willing to believe. As social media users, our best defense against fake news may be in simply keeping the information presented to us in context \u2014 at least as regulations and concerns over their effect on speech remain debated. We do not need to step away from our phones to be wary of anything purporting itself to be \u201cthe truth\u201d; it behooves us to carry a degree of self-awareness in why we are seeing something (e.g., an algorithm operating to present us information in line with our interests<a href=\"#_ftn36\" name=\"_ftnref36\"><sup>[36]<\/sup><\/a>) and having an idea of what we are already carrying into a given conversation.<\/p>\n<p>Something that is \u201cviral,\u201d and goes unquestioned among friends and family we are unlikely to be suspicious of, should give us pause. Still, unquestioned <em>distrust<\/em> of established or reputable media sources is not the solution, either.<a href=\"#_ftn37\" name=\"_ftnref37\"><sup>[37]<\/sup><\/a> Conflating genuine reporting of the truth \u2014 or the acknowledgment of honest mistakes \u2014 with <em>deliberate<\/em> misinformation risks doing more harm than good.<a href=\"#_ftn38\" name=\"_ftnref38\"><sup>[38]<\/sup><\/a> Much as <em>Temperance<\/em>\u2019s final resolution was the sudden availability of new sources of information to Minerva and Blessedbowl, we have unprecedented access to resources to verify or disprove purported facts.<a href=\"#_ftn39\" name=\"_ftnref39\"><sup>[39]<\/sup><\/a> The key is in not getting lost in a sea of \u201ctoo much information\u201d \u2014 or at least, too much information that plays into our preexisting biases.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><em>Nicole Prieto is a 2018 J.D. candidate and editor-in-chief of <\/em>Juris Magazine<em>. She is the president of the Duquesne Intellectual Property Law Association, an executive articles editor for the <\/em>Duquesne Law Review<em>, and an arts and entertainment writer for <\/em>The Duquesne Duke<em>.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>Sources<\/strong><\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><a href=\"#_ftnref1\" name=\"_ftn1\">[1]<\/a> <em>See generally<\/em> Cathy Malkasian, Temperance (2010).<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"#_ftnref2\" name=\"_ftn2\">[2]<\/a> This is something Malkasian has also broached with her 2017 work <em>Eartha<\/em>. <em>See generally<\/em> Nicole Prieto, <em>\u2018Earth\u2019 impresses with modern messages, gorgeous scenery<\/em>, The Duq. Duke (originally published in print Apr. 20, 2017), <a href=\"http:\/\/www.duqsm.com\/eartha-impresses-modern-messages-gorgeous-scenery\/\">www.duqsm.com\/eartha-impresses-modern-messages-gorgeous-scenery\/<\/a> (\u201c[Protagonist Eartha] learns that an army of plaid-wearing gangsters is exploiting [ ] City people into trading valuables for boxes of biscuits printed with dubious headlines. The City people, obsessed with \u2018Biscuit News,\u2019 become paralyzed with terror and addicted to comfort-eating the very pastries causing their distress.\u201d).<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"#_ftnref3\" name=\"_ftn3\">[3]<\/a> Stewart Bishop, <em>US Unveils New Russia Sanctions For Cyberattacks<\/em>, Law360 (Mar. 15, 2018), <a href=\"https:\/\/www.law360.com\/articles\/1022574\/us-unveils-new-russia-sanctions-for-cyberattacks\">https:\/\/www.law360.com\/articles\/1022574\/us-unveils-new-russia-sanctions-for-cyberattacks<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"#_ftnref4\" name=\"_ftn4\">[4]<\/a> Perhaps no less amplified by the controversial Sinclair Broadcast Group\u2019s speech read by its anchors earlier this year, criticized for conflating reporting by established media groups with fake news. <em>See<\/em> Cynthia Littleton, Sinclair Responds to Promo Critics, <em>Says Fake News Warnings \u2018Serve No Political Agenda\u2019<\/em>, Variety (Apr. 2, 2018, 3:49 PM PT), <a href=\"https:\/\/variety.com\/2018\/tv\/news\/sinclair-local-news-promos-fake-news-statement-1202741905\/\">https:\/\/variety.com\/2018\/tv\/news\/sinclair-local-news-promos-fake-news-statement-1202741905\/<\/a>; Brian Stelter<em>, Sinclair\u2019s new media-bashing promos rankle local anchors<\/em>, CNN (Mar. 7, 2018, 9:44 PM ET), <a href=\"http:\/\/money.cnn.com\/2018\/03\/07\/media\/sinclair-broadcasting-promos-media-bashing\/index.html\">http:\/\/money.cnn.com\/2018\/03\/07\/media\/sinclair-broadcasting-promos-media-bashing\/index.html<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"#_ftnref5\" name=\"_ftn5\">[5]<\/a> <em>See, e.g.<\/em>, David Z. Morris, <em>How Russians Used Social Media to Boost the Trump Campaign, According to Robert Mueller\u2019s Indictment<\/em>, Fortune (Feb. 17, 2018), <a href=\"http:\/\/fortune.com\/2018\/02\/17\/how-russians-used-social-media-election\/\">http:\/\/fortune.com\/2018\/02\/17\/how-russians-used-social-media-election\/<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"#_ftnref6\" name=\"_ftn6\">[6]<\/a> <em>Media, n.2<\/em>, OED Online, Oxford University Press (Jan. 2018), <a href=\"http:\/\/www.oed.com\/view\/Entry\/115635?isAdvanced=false&amp;result=2&amp;rskey=JeZDd1&amp;\">http:\/\/www.oed.com\/view\/Entry\/115635?isAdvanced=false&amp;result=2&amp;rskey=JeZDd1&amp;<\/a> (last visited Mar. 24, 2018).<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"#_ftnref7\" name=\"_ftn7\">[7]<\/a> <em>Social, adj. and n.<\/em>, OED Online, Oxford University Press (Jan. 2018), <a href=\"http:\/\/www.oed.com\/view\/Entry\/183739?redirectedFrom=social+media#eid272386371\">http:\/\/www.oed.com\/view\/Entry\/183739?redirectedFrom=social+media#eid272386371<\/a> (last visited Mar. 25, 2018).<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"#_ftnref8\" name=\"_ftn8\">[8]<\/a> Andrew Marantz, <em>Reddit and the Struggle to Detoxify the Internet<\/em>, The New Yorker (Mar. 19, 2018), <a href=\"https:\/\/www.newyorker.com\/magazine\/2018\/03\/19\/reddit-and-the-struggle-to-detoxify-the-internet\">https:\/\/www.newyorker.com\/magazine\/2018\/03\/19\/reddit-and-the-struggle-to-detoxify-the-internet<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"#_ftnref9\" name=\"_ftn9\">[9]<\/a> <em>See<\/em> <em>What is Trending?<\/em>, Help Center, Facebook, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/help\/1401671260054622\">https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/help\/1401671260054622<\/a> (last visited Mar. 25, 2018).<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"#_ftnref10\" name=\"_ftn10\">[10]<\/a> Natasha Lomas, <em>Fake news is an existential crisis for social media<\/em>, TechCrunch (Feb. 18, 2018), <a href=\"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/2018\/02\/18\/fake-news-is-an-existential-crisis-for-social-media\/\">https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/2018\/02\/18\/fake-news-is-an-existential-crisis-for-social-media\/<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"#_ftnref11\" name=\"_ftn11\">[11]<\/a> Kevin Granville, <em>Facebook and Cambridge Analytica: What You Need to Know as Fallout Widens<\/em>, N.Y. Times (Mar. 19, 2018), <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2018\/03\/19\/technology\/facebook-cambridge-analytica-explained.html\">https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2018\/03\/19\/technology\/facebook-cambridge-analytica-explained.html<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"#_ftnref12\" name=\"_ftn12\">[12]<\/a> John Herrman, <em>YouTube May Add to the Burdens of Humble Wikipedia<\/em>, N.Y. Times (Mar. 19, 2018), <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2018\/03\/19\/business\/media\/youtube-wikipedia.html\">https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2018\/03\/19\/business\/media\/youtube-wikipedia.html<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"#_ftnref13\" name=\"_ftn13\">[13]<\/a> Herman, <em>supra<\/em> note 13.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"#_ftnref14\" name=\"_ftn14\">[14]<\/a> <em>See, e.g.<\/em>, Katla McGlynn, <em>The Funniest Acts Of Wikipedia Vandalism Ever<\/em>, Huffington Post (Jan. 16, 2011, 10:41 AM ET), <a href=\"https:\/\/www.huffingtonpost.com\/2010\/04\/06\/the-funniest-acts-of-wiki_n_522077.html\">https:\/\/www.huffingtonpost.com\/2010\/04\/06\/the-funniest-acts-of-wiki_n_522077.html<\/a> (last updated Apr. 24, 2014).<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"#_ftnref15\" name=\"_ftn15\">[15]<\/a> <em>See<\/em> U.S. Const. amend. I; <em>see also<\/em> <em>First Amendment,<\/em> Legal Information Institute, Cornell Law School, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.law.cornell.edu\/wex\/first_amendment\">https:\/\/www.law.cornell.edu\/wex\/first_amendment<\/a> (last visited Mar. 25, 2018).<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"#_ftnref16\" name=\"_ftn16\">[16]<\/a> <em>See also<\/em> Nick Frost, <em>How \u2018Hamilton\u2019 Cast\u2019s Message to Mike Pence Could Have Faced Punishment Despite First Amendment<\/em>, Juris Magazine (Dec. 3, 2016), <a href=\"http:\/\/sites.law.duq.edu\/juris\/2016\/12\/03\/how-hamilton-casts-message-to-mike-pence-could-have-faced-punishment-despite-first-amendment\/\">http:\/\/sites.law.duq.edu\/juris\/2016\/12\/03\/how-hamilton-casts-message-to-mike-pence-could-have-faced-punishment-despite-first-amendment\/<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"#_ftnref17\" name=\"_ftn17\">[17]<\/a> Marantz, <em>supra<\/em> note 9.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"#_ftnref18\" name=\"_ftn18\">[18]<\/a> <em>Id.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"#_ftnref19\" name=\"_ftn19\">[19]<\/a> <em>Id.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"#_ftnref20\" name=\"_ftn20\">[20]<\/a> <em>Id.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"#_ftnref21\" name=\"_ftn21\">[21]<\/a> <em>See, e.g.<\/em>, David O. Klein &amp; Joshua R. Wueller, <em>Fake News: A Legal Perspective<\/em>, Klein Moynihan Turco LLP (May 1, 2017), <a href=\"http:\/\/www.kleinmoynihan.com\/fake-news-a-legal-perspective\/\">http:\/\/www.kleinmoynihan.com\/fake-news-a-legal-perspective\/<\/a>; NPR Staff, <em>What Legal Recourse Do Victims Of Fake News Stories Have?<\/em>, NPR (Dec. 7, 2016, 7:04 PM ET), <a href=\"https:\/\/www.npr.org\/2016\/12\/07\/504723649\/what-legal-recourse-do-victims-of-fake-news-stories-have\">https:\/\/www.npr.org\/2016\/12\/07\/504723649\/what-legal-recourse-do-victims-of-fake-news-stories-have<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"#_ftnref22\" name=\"_ftn22\">[22]<\/a> Megan Molteni, <em>When WhatsApp\u2019s Fake News Problem Threatens Public Health<\/em>, Wired (Mar. 9, 2018, 3:14 PM), <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wired.com\/story\/when-whatsapps-fake-news-problem-threatens-public-health\/\">https:\/\/www.wired.com\/story\/when-whatsapps-fake-news-problem-threatens-public-health\/<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"#_ftnref23\" name=\"_ftn23\">[23]<\/a> <em>Id.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"#_ftnref24\" name=\"_ftn24\">[24]<\/a> Joshua A. Geltzer, <em>Bad Actors Are Using Social Media Exactly As Designed<\/em>, Wired (Mar. 11, 2018, 8:00 AM), <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wired.com\/story\/bad-actors-are-using-social-media-exactly-as-designed\/\">https:\/\/www.wired.com\/story\/bad-actors-are-using-social-media-exactly-as-designed\/<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"#_ftnref25\" name=\"_ftn25\">[25]<\/a> Natasha Lomas, <em>Fake news is an existential crisis for social media<\/em>, TechCrunch (Feb. 18, 2018), <a href=\"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/2018\/02\/18\/fake-news-is-an-existential-crisis-for-social-media\/\">https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/2018\/02\/18\/fake-news-is-an-existential-crisis-for-social-media\/<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"#_ftnref26\" name=\"_ftn26\">[26]<\/a> Allison Grande, <em>EU Data Authority Pushes For Tighter \u2018Fake News\u2019 Regulation<\/em>, Law360 (Mar. 21, 2018, 9:21 PM EDT), <a href=\"https:\/\/www.law360.com\/articles\/1024246\/eu-data-authority-pushes-for-tighter-fake-news-regulation\">https:\/\/www.law360.com\/articles\/1024246\/eu-data-authority-pushes-for-tighter-fake-news-regulation<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"#_ftnref27\" name=\"_ftn27\">[27]<\/a> Joshua A. Geltzer, <em>Bad Actors Are Using Social Media Exactly As Designed<\/em>, Wired (Mar. 11, 2018, 8:00 AM), <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wired.com\/story\/bad-actors-are-using-social-media-exactly-as-designed\/\">https:\/\/www.wired.com\/story\/bad-actors-are-using-social-media-exactly-as-designed\/<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"#_ftnref28\" name=\"_ftn28\">[28]<\/a> Grande, <em>supra<\/em> note 27.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"#_ftnref29\" name=\"_ftn29\">[29]<\/a> <em>See, e.g.<\/em>, Brien Posey, <em>10 tips for spotting a fishy email<\/em>, TechRepublic (Oct. 15, 2015, 11:40 AM PST), <a href=\"https:\/\/www.techrepublic.com\/blog\/10-things\/10-tips-for-spotting-a-phishing-email\/\">https:\/\/www.techrepublic.com\/blog\/10-things\/10-tips-for-spotting-a-phishing-email\/<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"#_ftnref30\" name=\"_ftn30\">[30]<\/a> Elizabeth Kolbert, <em>Why Facts Don\u2019t Change Our Minds<\/em>, The New Yorker (Feb. 27, 2017), <a href=\"https:\/\/www.newyorker.com\/magazine\/2017\/02\/27\/why-facts-dont-change-our-minds\">https:\/\/www.newyorker.com\/magazine\/2017\/02\/27\/why-facts-dont-change-our-minds<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"#_ftnref31\" name=\"_ftn31\">[31]<\/a> <em>Id.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"#_ftnref32\" name=\"_ftn32\">[32]<\/a> <em>Id.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"#_ftnref33\" name=\"_ftn33\">[33]<\/a> <em>Id.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"#_ftnref34\" name=\"_ftn34\">[34]<\/a> <em>Id.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"#_ftnref35\" name=\"_ftn35\">[35]<\/a> <em>See generally<\/em> Nicholas Carr, The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains (2010).<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"#_ftnref36\" name=\"_ftn36\">[36]<\/a> AJ Agrawal, <em>What Do Social Media Algorithms Mean For You?<\/em>, Forbes (Apr. 20, 2016, 6:22PM), <a href=\"https:\/\/www.forbes.com\/sites\/ajagrawal\/2016\/04\/20\/what-do-social-media-algorithms-mean-for-you\/#2389545ca515\">https:\/\/www.forbes.com\/sites\/ajagrawal\/2016\/04\/20\/what-do-social-media-algorithms-mean-for-you\/#2389545ca515<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"#_ftnref37\" name=\"_ftn37\">[37]<\/a> Truth and trust take centerstage of Duquesne School of Law\u2019s recent symposium \u201cResurrecting Truth in American Law and Public Discourse: Shall These Bones Live?\u201d <em>See generally<\/em> Bruce Ledewitz, <em>The Resurrection of Trust in American Law and Public Discourse<\/em>, Juris Magazine (Nov. 21, 2017), <a href=\"http:\/\/sites.law.duq.edu\/juris\/2017\/11\/21\/the-resurrection-of-trust-in-american-law-and-public-discourse\/\">http:\/\/sites.law.duq.edu\/juris\/2017\/11\/21\/the-resurrection-of-trust-in-american-law-and-public-discourse\/<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"#_ftnref38\" name=\"_ftn38\">[38]<\/a> <em>See generally<\/em> Daniel Funke, <em>India issued fake news guidelines to the press. Then it reversed them.<\/em>, Poynter (Apr. 10, 2018), <a href=\"http:\/\/amp.poynter.org\/news\/india-issued-fake-news-guidelines-press-then-it-reversed-them\">http:\/\/amp.poynter.org\/news\/india-issued-fake-news-guidelines-press-then-it-reversed-them<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"#_ftnref39\" name=\"_ftn39\">[39]<\/a> Eugene Kiely &amp; Lori Robertson, <em>How to Spot Fake News<\/em>, FactCheck.org (Nov. 18, 2016), <a href=\"https:\/\/www.factcheck.org\/2016\/11\/how-to-spot-fake-news\/\">https:\/\/www.factcheck.org\/2016\/11\/how-to-spot-fake-news\/<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Nicole Prieto, Editor-in-Chief In her surrealistic graphic novel Temperance,[1] Cathy Malkasian posits an unusual thought experiment: Can a community enclosed in a ship of stone \u2014 buoyed along a fictional sea of fire and convinced it is surrounded by \u201cenemies\u201d that do not exist \u2014 thrive unperturbed for 30 [\u2026] <\/p>\n<div class=\"clear\"><\/div>\n<p><a class=\"more_link clearfix\" href=\"https:\/\/sites.law.duq.edu\/juris\/2018\/04\/17\/a-new-information-age-fake-news-and-the-power-of-narrative\/\" rel=\"nofollow\">Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":11891,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2092,7],"tags":[2334,2339,2337,2338,2332,2336,2261,2333,780,39,426,2335],"class_list":["post-11890","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-features-articles","category-juris-features","tag-cathy-malkasian","tag-confirmation-bias","tag-editing","tag-editorial","tag-fake-news","tag-fiction","tag-media","tag-narrative","tag-regulation","tag-social-media","tag-stories","tag-temperance"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.law.duq.edu\/juris\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11890","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.law.duq.edu\/juris\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.law.duq.edu\/juris\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.law.duq.edu\/juris\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.law.duq.edu\/juris\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11890"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/sites.law.duq.edu\/juris\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11890\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11902,"href":"https:\/\/sites.law.duq.edu\/juris\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11890\/revisions\/11902"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.law.duq.edu\/juris\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11891"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.law.duq.edu\/juris\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11890"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.law.duq.edu\/juris\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11890"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.law.duq.edu\/juris\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11890"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}