Tools of Disinformation: How Fake News Gets to Deceive

In this chapter, Edson C. Tandoc Jr. assesses why people believe in and propagate false information found online. He does so through four components of communication—namely Sender, Message, Channel and Receiver—and examines the different factors that affect each one. Tandoc’s research reveals that an increasing number of people get their news from social media instead of local news websites, which leads to various consequences on all four components of communication. He explains that individuals judge a news story’s credibility not only on who shared it on social media, but also on the number of likes, comments, and shares. Fake news producers therefore often “produce clickbait content to get more people to like, share, or comment on their fake stories, often playing into readers’ biases or interests”. Tandoc proposes that although the majority of disinformation research has focused on Facebook and Twitter, “fake news now increasingly moves through closed social media applications, such as the messaging app WhatsApp”. He also delineates how fake news and disinformation thrives in times of uncertainty and in situations of information overload—combatting this issue will require a “multi-pronged approach involving technological, economic, legal, and social interventions”.