America's Line of Defense: How Fake News is becoming Increasingly Real

Imagine your conservative cousin with a hot cup of coffee in one hand and their trusty device in the other, scrolling through their Facebook feed for the latest updates. Suddenly, they stumble upon an article of how a democratic donor has been a committed Nazi his whole life. Quite frankly, they aren't surprised by this. It’s the same narrative they’ve seen a thousand times over. Without stopping to consider the authenticity of the article, they hit the “share” button and leave a comment espousing the dangers of democrats. 

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On America's Last Line of Defense, a political liberal satire site by Christopher Blair that deliberately creates spoofs of "extremist ideas" on the political right, this behavior has become increasingly common. As a democrat, Blair cannot help wonder when his right wing followers will realize “they are being fed garbage and return to reality”. Yet, for those like Shirley Chapian of Pahrump, Nevada, these stories aren’t garbage. Rather, they are priceless gems, portraying how the democrats continue to disrespect and take advantage of our nation.

As we consume information that only confirms our own biases and beliefs, we may find it harder to reliably discriminate between what's real and what's not. Our judgment becomes precluded by the simple fact that the information we have supports what we believe. As Frankfurt explains in Truth, Lies, & Bullshit, the inability to reasonably discriminate makes it difficult to successfully find our way through an environment of falsehood and fraud. 

Moreover, social media is increasingly becoming our primary source of information, exacerbating the issue of confirmation bias. Each share, comment, or like is tracked by the algorithms that in turn determine the “personalized” content lovingly displayed in our news feeds. This facilitates the creation of “filter bubbles”, where we function in an information environment of our own interests, incapable of seeking other sources to facilitate our thoughts and beliefs. 

It also doesn’t help that we live in an attention economy, where even mainstream news sources resort to a “Breaking News” or a “This Just in” to capture our attention. As other sources of information like Blair’s page mimic these techniques, it becomes much more difficult to distinguish whether a source of information is credible or not.

So, do we as consumers have a line of defense against the information we see? Or, are we doomed to live in a world where we cannot distinguish between the truth and the lies?