This document provides an overview of fake news and discusses several key points: - Fake news has become a significant threat to both journalism and democracy. It undermines trust in media and spreads misinformation. - The causes of fake news are human - things like confirmation bias, selective exposure, and the need to maintain one's worldview. Social media has amplified these issues. - Fake news is not new, but digital technologies have provided a rich environment for it to spread. Populism and polarization have also contributed to its spread and success. - While technology companies get blamed, the problem is fundamentally human. Addressing fake news requires understanding human psychology and the societal changes that give rise to it

1. Good afternoon! I am a real Vasily Gatov (not fake
one) and I’m a real visiting fellow at USC Annenberg. I
am going to speak about fake news - very popular yet
extremely broad subject that has come into our life as
professionals, as citizens, as media consumers not really
long ago.
We need to use this uncomfortably broad term - too
broad to be scientific – as we strive to comprehend the
emerged new reality, and develop some protective,
salvage measures.
Why is fake news a threat, an Enemy with capital E - to
both democracy and journalism?
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2. Apparently, fake news and weaponized information
became a number one issue in American press and
political debate. It spreads to many other countries,
including Germany, France, Italy and others.
It’s also the most significant challenge to journalism and
the news industry as Oxford Reuters Institute stated in
the report earlier this year. Fake news endangers
journalism from multiple directions, undermining Trust
(something we relied upon for some generations),
cutting into a revenue base and intercepting
audiences – the source of media purpose of existance.
Not to say, Fake news infect democracy with multiple
unwanted diseases.
But fake news is not a new phenomenon, and that’s
one of the keys for understanding the issue.
One more note: many people in media, in regulatory
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3. sphere and in politics see Fake news as a technology
driven problem, But fortunately for us and unfortunately
for them this is not purely a technological problems.
Just a quick note on the lost on the last. Many people
are quick to blame our hate-loved partners like
Facebook, Twitter and Google for the creation of the
fake news phenomenon, well, may be not creation as
such but in providing a rich soil for them.
Understandingly, when we speak about someone or
someone we deeply hate and deeply in love with we
cannot make a decent distinction between the rolls this
thing go to this person place in our sailors and our
problems.
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4. Unfortunately I cannot insert a mirror into a PowerPoint.
Because most of the problems we are going to discuss
in the next few minutes are completely about ourselves.
The cause of the fake news phenomenon is entirely
human, and it is about our very own human
imperfections, human social problems and frustrations.
In my opinion, technology advances and different
malignant actors who try to wrap night information are
much less important components in this equation.
However, they are indispensable for us when we try to
develop a cure, an antidote to this life-threatening
illness.
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5. Well, well, - we just we will discuss Him later! I know
everyone wants to know, but wait a bit for a bore
professorial lecture to take the pace of NYT op-ed…
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6. So, as I said - the problem is us, the problem is you. We
are not these perfect creature imagined by Plato in
vision in six century BC who live in well designed future
republic. Besides of things that Leon Festinger explored
about 100 years ago - selective exposure to
communication, and confirmation bias and cognitive
dissonance avoidance… Michael Fouclaut and
Nicholas Luhman explained later the necessity for
human beings to maintain the reality connection,
making us prone to ignorant, illogical affection towards
conservative agenda of preservation of
unpreservable…
But we also have novelty, a new entrant into this
Portfolio of imperfections: digital social networks
amplified performative behavior – well, they call it
“sharing craze”, or FOMA syndrome (fear of mission
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7. out). For a socially networked human it becomes
increasingly important to demonstrate allegiance to
certain shared knowledge, shared views or
consumption pattern – in order to fell less loneliness and
isolation, that grows in hyperconnected world. Sharing is
a performative act, and it drives at least a half of Fake
news power.
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8. The second most dominant issue we need to deal with
is society changes. Not only these changes are fast and
omnipresent, but they – via an aforementioned Reality
Maintenance feature – invoke an open, sometimes
aggressive frustration. Ordinary people feel and protest
negative effects of globalization (especially changing
demographics, kudos to Alternative fur Deutschland);
multiplied by the factor of digital divide, comes a
important generational shift, reflected not only in
different values of Millennials and Generation Z , but
also – in an acute rejection of the previous generations
values, both political, life and consumer.
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9. The third component of the fake news assault on our
democracy in our profession: digital weapons. I’m not
speaking about specific pieces of software or hacker
tools, but I’m speaking about those glossy nice things
every and each of you have in your pocket. Smart
phones, iPhones and connected applications are the
weapons of personal distraction or maybe even mass
destruction (or, in Marxian speech ‘destruction of
masses’).
It’s easy to assign the blame to mobile phones and
digital applications because never in history the piece
of technology has been so rapidly adopted buy so
many; but unless we also underline that permanent Net
access is a dual use technology, this indictment will be
incomplete.
Like in at the dawn of nuclear Era, International agency
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10. for atomic energy created a list of dual use materials
and technologies, that may lead to exploration of a
nuclear fission and creation of an A-bomb, these new
digital technologies were invented for good (remember
Google’s motto “do no evil”?) but now we know they
can be turned into weapons. There’s weapons could be
directed against particular humans, or particular
society‘s or humankind in general.
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11. You know Russians, they cannot leave any lecture
without a proper reference to out great culture and
literature, and I am no exclusion. Chekhov’s gun hangs
on the wall in the first act and this mean it will definitely
fire in the third one. Most of the technologist and
problems we are discussing in connection with fake
news have emerged long before 2016, or are persistent
to human nature and social tissue. Few prophets
warned us to be prepared to some kind of digital
dystopia (Manuel Castells and Eugeny Morozov among
them), but very few people in government and tech
really listened to them. And the gun (or, probably, it
was the whole battery of rocket-propelled artillery) fired
in the third act – so to say.
Transitional societies – like Russia - with weak press and
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12. low journalism standards became exposed to domestic
versions of Fake News much earlier than the West. Same
applies to the role of digital technology in Arab Spring,
in formation of ISIS internet insurgency. For concerned
scientists it always was not to know on the existence of a
trigger – but a waiting when it is pulled.
8

13. To understand how fake news phenomenon today, we
need to take a very brief history lesson. It could be said
the fake news is a kid of modern propaganda who
probably serve as his mother, and digital technology
that somehow worked as a father of this unwanted
child. There’s one important thing to note about
modern propaganda which not many people
understand. Born in the fire of the world wars,
propaganda has a very important feature -
indoctrination. Unlike a military device propaganda
doesn’t want to kill you, it wants you to obey act and
think as the perpetrator of your brain needs.
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14. The works of Clyde Miller and the Lord Ponsonby,
published in 1920s-1930s, explain to us how
propaganda really works; very important input to the
study of propaganda has been done by a French
scientist Jaques Eiulle in 1970s. He discovered and
explained the so-called “confusion arch” principle, the
one that best describes the way malicious messaging
get into your brain and manipulate your behavior.
It all starts from YOUR own confusion that converts part
of your mind into an investigative media consumption
device. Confused, or frustrated by uncomfortable
reality, human mind ENGAGES, looks for answers.
Because of the engagement, and confusion, it really
searches for simple answers – in a hope, that the
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15. simplicity will stop, abolish a frustration. That’s where
declarative, mindset-addressing propaganda sneaks in!
By PLOPPING A MINDSET, some sort of childish simplified
thinking, it offers LIKELY SOLUTION (usually, the one that is
completely against your interests). It’s a bit like us,
making our children to to wash hands or brush teeth or
clean up their toys after the play. By hooking up on a
mindset, propaganda propels certain action (or
inaction, in some cases – like “this war is already lost,
why should you risk your life”). There’s no propaganda
that just informs you, it needs you to act, to be
programmed to do something dictated by a mindset.
That is REAL propaganda goal. Indoctrinate a target
and propel a desired behavior.
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16. Next flight
In case of fake news and postmodern propaganda,
the biggest difference is that it has no goals. Even
more, it’s so very postmodern that the production and
distribution of this propaganda (and fake news faction)
is the only goal of its existence. It skips a part of
confusion, the part of mindset, even the part of action
incitement. The only thing it really seeks is engagement.
As we entered attention economy, we also dumped
into attention-only propaganda (and advertising, to be
exact). All other components may or not may be
present. But the only thing modern propaganda and
fake news needs - from you is your attention. Because it
pays, because it converts into a hard cash, whether it
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17. comes from Google AdSense, adversary government,
ISIS, whoever.
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18. Here comes the question I cannot avoid in a wake of
recent elections in Germany (and, of course, US
presidential, France presidential et cetera). If modern
propaganda and fake news have no other goal than
just attention, why it is so consistently connected to a
success of right-wing, populist and conservative
resurgence in many countries?
In order to answer this question, we need another very
short lesson – on political science.
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19. Donald Trump loves television, loves twitter, loves
attention. I probably can stop behind saying this, as all
the key words are here. Yes, populism of the new
historical period is nothing than attention politics. Is
strives for your attention, being ready to do actually
everything, say everything, promise everything to keep
you, as voter and citizen, engaged.
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20. But as it shares the powerful weapon with propaganda,
populism also enriches the turf for all kinds of media
communications. Both for true and false media, just the
later are quicker and not morally strained to use this
rich soil of unconsciousness. An important note to what
is on the screen: both fake news and populism politics
blossom in polarized societies; more people are divided
and more narrow margin defines electoral victories –
more turf both will find for ongoing success.
Fake news utilize digital goodies better and more
efficient than traditional news organizations. Populist
politicians exploit mass media far better than traditional
leaders. “Share” button and “retweet” function are
their best friends, second only to social human
imperfections.
But as I just indoctrinated you, utilizing a simple
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21. messaging technique called “framing” (by putting one
issue into a context of another, more clear and
therefore providing you with a simple answer), we also
need a minute of Media Effects study to further explore
the subject.
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22. The founding father of modern communication theory,
Wilbur Schramm, once noted that media development
cannot outpace the society development. Press only
survives if it matches the levels of its’ audiences. Such
match provides mass media with its most important
feature – Trust, something that Fake News challenges
and attacks all the time, alongside with populism.
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23. I mentioned before that a concept of dual-use
technology is something to be addressed in a Fake
news debate. The prominent feature that makes Fake
news (and digital propaganda) so powerful is FREE. My
friend and ex-editor of WIRED USA Chris Anderson one
wrote a book, called FREE – where he explained that
internet wins amid all competition, scrutiny and criticism
because it has a major competitive advantage
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24. This “FREE” option makes a given, no-brand, no-trust,
no-quality fake news site a steep advantage: not only it
comes to you for free, it also spends money to be
delivered to you, via Google SEO tools, or Facebook
advertising, or influencer marketing.
And – never forget – that trust, trustworthiness is a target
for all kinds of fake news and propaganda. They will
save no method to make you feel dissatisfied with
legacy, real media (even labeling them MSM, or lame-
stream media, like Donald Trump). Press freedom, trust
with press is fertilizer for a democracy, but for fake news
– it is an insecticide, a poison pill.
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25. Before coming to some practical suggestions – how will
the journalism survive this offensive (and yes, I
remember my promise to tell you about Putin)? – I will
briefly provide an unconventional classification of Fake
news. Not all of them are equal, they carry different
powers and require different treatment.
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26. While some of the remedies may sound banal, we
should not fall into a rejection of moral and professional
simplicity of the tools. While our mutual adversaries may
look shielded and unconstrained, they have a few
weak spots – and this is a permanent.
Fake news and – decisively – propaganda are opaque,
non-transparent in their intentions and methods. By no
means they are accountable; and, sharing this with
populist politics, they all are irresponsible. As they goal
for a maintenance of your attention, for distraction of
you from what is real and important, they never care
about the community – the audience you, as journalist,
editor, publisher live with. Gordon Pennycook and his
Yale collegues recently published a great research that
dissects internal working of digital propaganda: by
substituting a real, factual agenda with GeoPolitics, or
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27. invented scandalous events or sayings, fake news
managed to hop onto reality maintenance
imperfection. Meanwhile, what differentiates REAL news
and REAL societal role of the press, is a deep and hearty
connection with local and national interests.
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28. When 2016 constituted the “year of post-truth” with all
those “alternative facts”, promulgating conspiracy
theories, public lying and whatever else is in “arsenal of
anti-democracy”, the issue of debunking became
central, especially for media activists and watchdogs.
While falsehood debunking is a necessary and
understandable desire of journalism that faces a lying
competitor, lying politician or institution – not always it
really works, and sometimes debunking even makes it
worse. Brendan Nyhan from Dartmouth College and
Adam Berinsky of MIT both made an important
contribution to our understanding of the machinery
here. Debunking does not provide a correction –
especially for those who are already biased; worse, it
contributes to a further delusion of the press trust. In a
polarized political context it compromises the very
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29. institutions of integrity (like snopes.com and other
factchecking services) as biased consumers would
rather decline logic and common sense, and dive
deeper in their filter bubble than accept hard and
uncomfortable truth.
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30. There’s some interesting historical examples of working
solutions to counter fakes and falsehood propaganda.
In 1981-1994, Active Measures Working group was a
critical component of the Cold War remedy to Soviet
militarized information. But it only worked well because
it sat on USIA infrastructure (making it at least partially
integral to national and international policy), and
because US leadership realized the importance and
value of the AMWG work. Confluence of research,
political integrity and leadership support made this
case prominent. None of todays replicas to AMWG
contain or rely onto aforementioned features. They exist
– at least by now – as private or social initiatives, without
integration with national politics (or alliance politics, for
NATO and EU).
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31. Yes, here it comes, Vladimir Vladimirovich, running a
secret machine of propaganda and placing his bets
against democracy and freedom. That was a joke!
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32. No rational analyst would challenge US Intelligence
conclusion on Russian meddling in presidential elections
in 2016. Not that the fact is undeniably proven with a
hard evidence (at least yet), but too many details
emerged and will emerge. The only major reservation I
have as both Russian and communications expert is a
question of scale. Basically, in the behemoth media
campaign – Hillary spend almost 1.1 bln dollars, Trump
camp outed 0.4 bln – Russian factor was pretty petite,
and unlikely decisive. But:
Whatever details we will know in future, it does not
change an important all-round conclusion – Vladimir
Putin had intentions and powers and, possibly, tools to
hurt American democracy in the same way he THINKS
United States were hurting countries and governments
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33. whom the White House despises.
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34. What needs to be explained, is the nature of Russian
conduct, the reasons that brought Putin to “hybrid”
weapons (I use hybrid in brackets as this term is all way
wrong). Unlike USSR and Communist leaders, Putin does
not want to conquer the world. What he seeks – and
attempts to achieve with operations similar to US
presidential election in 2016 – is defensive, it is
protection of his power hold from external dangers. He
equalizes his own interests with national interests of
Russia and – contrary to real national interests – spends
great fortune, time and effort of making nasty things to
neighbors and global influencers. And he will continue
to do so.
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35. “Russian factor” in fake news and propaganda field
has one grand power (that is simultaneously a great
weakness). Propaganda is just the tip of the iceberg;
corruption is the real Russian export. Not RT weakens
democracy, but proliferation of embezzlement; not
fake news really supports far right and populists, but
cash injections (sometimes coupled with clandestine
assistance). No one exemplifies this present and
constant danger better than your former chancellor,
who enjoys lush Gazprom payouts and Putin’s
friendship. Schroeder embodies the hypocritical nature
of the West political elites; along with other Vlad’s
buddy Silvio Berlusconi.
And, would I risk my prophetical reputation, I must say:
this will not change until Russia changes. So, fighting
against fake news and digital propaganda must
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36. include, as default, support for changes in Russia.
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37. 26

38. So, after I drew a murky picture where enemies are
powerful and persisting, I may resort to a few
recommendations – what may strengthen remaining
positions of quality journalism against the Enemy with
capital E.
It will be suicidal to stop reporting the news. The news is
a blood of the current society. Make news and
information central to every effort, not views and
analysis. In a world of post-truth, objective facts still
matter most.
Keep transparency, integrity and accountability.
Embrace them, underline that your media products are
responsible, open, impartial. Don’t be shy to show your
underpants, but don’t make striptease your business.
Be wary of technology solutions, even if you firmly
believe Facebook, Twitter and Google must pay their
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39. share in cleaning up the house. Tech giants will – butfar
less efficient unless you provide them with good reasons
to employ the full power of a corporate censorship, and
push for responsible use of this completely
undemocratic tool.
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40. I mentioned Active Measure Working Group before, but
need to resort to this history lesson again. One less
known part of AMWG work was a preparation of policy
recommendations that covered areas of Soviet active
measures and played well for Soviet aggressive
propaganda. Targeted societies, targeted political
systems should not be purely defensive, and reject
legitimate criticism that often mixes up with falsehoods.
Society is never perfect. There’s always those in need,
in danger, in repression; one of the main parts of real
journalism is fighting for underrepresented.
Don’t antagonize The Technology. Even if Google and
Facebook are guilty in your eyes, they didn’t mean it.
Help them to identify the problems, correct them – but
do not make more enemies.
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41. Be careful with debunking, do no harm. Sometimes it is
not necessary to repeat a lie if you want to argue with it.
Challenge facts, but not someone’s poisoned
interpretation of them.
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42. Well, Russians are bad but they did not steal all the
bicycles in Amsterdam. Do not fall into an easy trap of
prepared mindset-invoking answer (as you may
remember, this is one of the core propaganda arch
components).
Do investigative reporting, but: never forget it should be
entertaining. Old style lengthy document-full
“revelations” will not work in fast-paced digital
consumption. Of course, it looks very authoritative and
may make you feel proud and accomplished. But the
consumer wants something different – shareable bites,
well positioned within a contemporary context.
And one very last thing. Adverse propaganda and its
sibling – malicious fake news – are very unhappy
creatures. They thrive on problems, on despair, on
troubles and conflicts. While this gives them access to
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43. frustrated minds, this is another weak spot, Achilles heel
of the Enemy with capital E. Staying positive,
constructive, open-minded is an antidote to fake news.
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