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unwitting consumers. Such algorithms algorithms Such consumers. news unwitting information tailor to in algorithms which bubbles’, ‘filter or chambers’ ‘echo so-called all within above reverberates news Fake of disrespect dialogues and stability. international to athreat pose to potential the has challenging, Most circulation. of news and intensity velocity mind-blowing and with within, from undermined are being that societies on effect have adestabilizing can It people. different to things different means news Fake cause. their helping ‘netizens’ like-minded mobilize to or internet, the on fought out in disputes stories anything-goes generate to interest self- by economic motivated cynically rather are in fake news involved people Some Echo chambers come in many shapes and in many shapes come chambers Echo of fake news. politics back-end the constitute news is, one can observe a worrying tendency to counter it before understanding it. understanding before it counter to tendency aworrying observe can one is, news of 21 of form anew into fake news have turned technologies Digital of disinformation. direction and speed scale, nature, the changed has in societies our of technology role The news. of for consumers-cum-multipliers “legit” is, it what fake news making thus people, by and circulated shared believed, are They feature. distinguishing key their is –that real look stories fabricated that is fake news with main problems of the One entertained. of being asense to and offence concern great from varies it to reaction public The politics. and in international issues national on and fast, thick comes news Fake st do about it Fake news –and what ( 2018 FEBRUARY century . Apart from the challenge of making sense of what fake of what sense of making challenge the from Apart propaganda. century the wheels of US-Philippines relations when when relations of US-Philippines wheels the greased hardly it insults: to as And Russia. in originating fake by news suggested both Europe, in modern anorm not is and incest aKGB agent been never has Dalia Grybauskait president Lithuanian post. afake Facebook of course was ISIS” to Weapons Sold Clinton “Hillary examples: of many two are Here states. between public opinion and ongoing the conversation impact that leaders by insults calculated with mix in apoisonous interference cause can it politics In international debates. political national style to capacity the has news Fake Facebook. on engagements 96,000 Trump”, Donald generated Endorses which World: Shakes Francis “Pope campaign: 2016 the during election US surprise by taken was of Catholics, community global the chamber,Anothersizeable echo bubble. filter like a less or more functions arguably world the Western online and offline Both sizes. not ) to to ) confuse campaign- ė

Jan Melissen Clingendael Alert Clingendael Alert

President Rodrigo Duterte referred to the of social morality and a confusion in the US in Manila as a “gay son value system”. These are fitting words of a whore”. And it did not inject trust in from novelist Yu Hua in his book China Mexican-US relations when US President in Ten Words, reflecting on the rapid rise Trump, speaking alongside his counterpart in popularity of the words “copycat” and Enrique Peña Nieto, confirmed to reporters “bamboozle” in China. They might equally that Mexico was going to “pay for the Wall”. apply to the proliferation of fake news in Nor did it help the US relationship with the West. Australia when Trump hung up on Malcolm Turnbull, during his first conversation with The difference between false news and the Prime Minister of a country that has fake news lies in its stylization. Printed fought side by side with the US in every fake news looks real and new technologies armed conflict since World War I. make it much harder to determine that pictures have been purposely doctored to Fake news is the bedfellow of what could be mislead audiences for political purposes. called the dialogue of disrespect, and this “Weaponized” communication is affecting combination constitutes a fertile breeding governmental public . After ground for political myths. The “post- the initial euphoria about knowledge society” in which expertise is empowering ‘the people’, it was only under fire has not come like a bolt from the a matter of time before the power of blue. In 1958, hysteria led to the algorithms drew the attention of a growing widespread belief that the was number of governments. technologically superior to the West, and – fast-forward more than half a century – in At the second International Conference 2018 climate change is rhetorically equated on hosted by the to weather or winter. Israeli Ministry of Affairs in Jerusalem (#DDConf2017) in December last year, questions about diplomatic communication Social confusion powered by algorithms took centre stage. The same is the case at The Hague Digital The World Economic Forum (WEF) warned Diplomacy Camp (#DiploCamp) at the as early as 2013, in the eighth edition of its Netherlands Foreign Ministry, 1-2 February Global Risks report, that “digital wildfires can 2018, which coincides with the publication wreak havoc in the real world”. Technological of this Clingendael Alert. developments are blending with geopolitical risk and systematic disinformation potentially In international relationships algorithms give undermines global governance and the governments the tools to penetrate digital legitimacy of international institutions. In the people-to-people networks in both friendly time-span of less than five years we can see and hostile foreign environments. It is how perceptions of digital media are in flux. hardly surprising that astute governments In the wake of the so-called “Arab Spring” perceiving the digital sphere as an arena in they were said to empower people and which geopolitical rivalries are played out harbour the promise of social mobilization were among the first to embrace the use of and political transformation. algorithms in diplomacy. Outside the West, this includes usual suspect authoritarians Today, with some 15 per cent of tweets like Russia, but also Iran, and Sudan. In generated by bots, people on the internet China, which aims to become the world’s feel increasingly unsure as to whether artificial intelligence superpower, junior they are actually talking to a human. The have data science on their training creation of the Internet was underpinned curriculum. On the edge of Europe, Turkey by trust, but millennials do not necessarily is unfolding as a self-confident powerhouse see things that way anymore, let alone using digital tools and fake news to both their digitally native younger siblings. Fake mobilize its diaspora and persecute political news plausibly demonstrates “a breakdown opponents in Europe and North America.

2 Clingendael Alert

Clampdown on news Facebook and Twitter. It is unclear where things are going in a world of simultaneous For many people in the non-democratic polarization and convergence of traditional world institutionalized fake news is old news: media and social media. systematic disinformation is part of political culture, a fact of life. In many countries On the positive side, it is safe to predict the population knows that the makers of that future media will look different, and fake news are the same people as those we can already discern the outlines of new who control fake news: the government. models. One example: “OhMyNews” is a Spreading undesirable news digitally in the South Korean citizens’ news organization domestic environment is being outlawed with 65,000 contributors that is operated by in various countries and offenders risk professionals following standard journalistic being locked up. The Turkish authorities are procedures like editing and fact-checking. reported to have arrested 311 people over In the current siege-like media landscape, social media posts about the recent military with the open question of who is surrounding operation in northern Syria. Across borders, whom in the global info-sphere, this Korean authoritarian powers both large and small example is a hopeful sign pointing to possible are becoming increasingly skilled in following new media models. digital trails and hunting down political opponents across the globe. Meta-literacy In some countries “no news” is still preferred to fake news. The absence of any meaningful What to do about systematic disinformation domestic news in Myanmar about the in the digital sphere? New forms of news Rohingya crisis is a terrifying example. writing are emerging and we therefore need Other authoritarians try to shut down to take a fresh look at how to read. Citizens digital platforms that criticize the abuse of in a media landscape in which news can power. Rappler, a social news network in no longer be separated from the algorithms the Philippines with 3.5 million Facebook that drive it, and devices enhancing the followers, currently faces the withdrawal “spreadability” of news, need new, different of its licence by the government. President forms of literacy. Meta-literacy requires Duterte is accusing the platform of being greater critical awareness of the context in run by foreigners, which is illegal under which information is produced as well as the Philippines law. And in the “free” West we habit of reading news that does not affirm see the President of the United States using one’s beliefs. It equally stands to reason his discretion to label media like The New that in a digital world in which “everybody York Times and CNN as fake news. is a journalist”, people who write news for potentially large audiences would benefit The political contestation of undesirable from the toolkit of the professional journalist. facts is on the rise and the jury is still out as to whether this trend has reached the high- The fight against digital disinformation has water mark. But for some Western countries become multifaceted. Where such anti-fake traditional propaganda rather than fake news initiatives (ranging from legal solutions news appears to be the principal headache. and governments taking on the tech giants Australia is more concerned about China’s to myriad fact-checking initiatives) focus influence in mainstream media, purchasing on news as an artefact, they should not ads and favourable articles, and about overlook the important receiving end of fake Australian Chinese-language media. news. Fake news exposure, which can be seen as the fast-food variant of investigative In Europe governments have stepped in, with journalism, is not enough and may have Germany and France introducing legislation undesirable side effects. to help ban fake news. Chancellor Merkel and President Macron opened 2018 with an The Field Guide to Fake News, showing offensive against the lacklustre deletion of the results of a digital cookbook project illegal posts and hate speech by tech giants (fakenews.publicdatalab.org), proposes an

3 Clingendael Alert

alternative approach: we need to understand In the digital age everything starts with the “not just the strategies and formats of ordinary individual – neither empowered hero fakeness, but the politics and composition of nor hate speech villain – and that applies the media and information environments of equally to finding solutions for the problem the digital age”. Instead of giving the makers of fake news. In the variegated patchwork of fake news the attention they crave, the that is required to counter fake news, there authors argue, we need to look above all is a greater need for practices like fact- at the consumers of news. As stated at the checking than in the pre-digital age, and it is beginning of this argument, fake news is important to expose destabilizing narratives ultimately turned into news by readers and based on deliberately hurtful disinformation. viewers who are mesmerized by negative and Powerful actors like tech giants have a job provocative headlines. Media consumers- to do, but there is rightly also a call for the cum-producers turn fiction on the town taming of excessive corporate power and square of the global village into news – arrogance. International organizations have simply by believing, liking, sharing, reposting, a role to play, but should be conscious of forwarding and retweeting it. their contested legitimacy in the societies of their member states. Governments need to be aware that ‘the law’ is not enough to fix No quick fix a social illness, and in our collective memory it is hard to dissociate propaganda and lack In international politics fake news has real of freedom of speech from state power. consequences, and so has countering fake news in 20th century tit-for-tat style. Probably Civil society involvement in fighting fake with an eye to the 2019 EU Parliamentary news deserves more emphasis, and greater elections, the European ’s resilience of persons – as the smallest units EastStratcom Task Force has recently of our society – starts with the systematic committed an additional €1 million to expose introduction of meta-literacy in education. Russian propaganda online. Giving this This probably remains the best antidote to European online “mythbusting” initiative fake news. the benefit of the doubt, one might suggest that the Twitter handle @EUvsDisinfo contributes to greater awareness of Russian practices among EU citizens. But isn’t the whole exercise about something European citizens on all sides of the political spectrum already know? Does the EEAS realize that people outside of one’s own filter bubble could see such pronouncements as counter- propaganda?

At best this initiative looks like a quick fix that fails to address underlying problems. At worst it is a classic case of preaching to the converted. Fighting Russian fake news with Cold War-style tools does not make things any better. Did it cross the minds of the mandarins of EU diplomacy that official initiatives like this one are perhaps not in sync with the zeitgeist? There are no quick fixes for what is fundamentally a problem of human behaviour. It is understandable that the EU is in a hurry, but fake news can only be understood by looking into the ways in which it is circulated and believed online.

4 About the Clingendael Institute Clingendael – the Netherlands Institute of – is a leading think tank and academy on international affairs. Through our analyses, training and public debate we aim to inspire and equip governments, businesses, and civil society in order to contribute to a secure, sustainable and just world. www.clingendael.org  @clingendaelorg [email protected]  The Clingendael Institute +31 70 324 53 84  The Clingendael Institute

About the author

Jan Melissen is a Senior Research Fellow at the Netherlands Institute of International Relations Clingendael, currently starting a secondment to Leiden University’s Faculty of Governance and Global Affairs, The Hague, and Professor of Diplomacy at the University of Antwerp. He is founding co-editor of The Hague Journal of Diplomacy.