One person's fake news is another's explosive revelation, so how can Google, Facebook and others cut to the truth of the matter?

Fake news is shaping up to be a serious threat to democracy, as you can't be guided by the will of the people when they're misinformed. At least that's the way it's supposed to work, although in practice modern democracies tend to be oligarchies in disguise with the powerful few lying to the masses who place more stock in feelpinions than facts anyway.

It's not like propaganda and the abuse of power are anything new, but fake news is complicated by the fact it has been twisted back upon itself. Fake news has actually become the victim of fake news, to the point where the term is now often evoked to describe any supposed fact with which someone doesn't agree.

The classic definition of fake news comes from the 2016 US presidential campaign, referring to websites in Eastern Europe set up to fabricate sensational stories about US politicians simply as click-bait to bring in traffic and make money from advertising.

The pro-Trump slant in these fake news campaigns reeked of Russian interference, as part of its increasingly sophisticated international propaganda efforts, but you could also argue that targeting angry, disenfranchised Trump supporters made good economic sense as they would be most willing to believe lies about the opposition.

Fake news has become a powerful underhanded political tool around the world and Facebook has acknowledged that it's become a tool for governments seeking to manipulate public opinion in other countries – outlining new measures to combat "information operations".

Fake fake news

While Trump and other conservative politicians clearly benefited from fake news, they were quick to co-opt the term and distort its meaning.

Fake news soon became another word for bias, even though they're not quite the same thing – generally fake news is a totally fabricated report while biased news gives a slanted view of real events. The latter is much harder to objectively detect.

In the hands of Trump, fake news became a catchphrase to discredit any news report or fact which didn't align with his own beliefs and ambitions. Along with this came the term "alternative facts" to defend Trump's preference for facts that work in his favour.

From the beginning of his campaign, Trump was not afraid to make demonstrable false public statements. His apparent ability to get away with outright lies has lowered the bar for politicians around the world and emboldened those who seek to sweep aside inconvenient truths.

At the same time Trump declared war on sections of the mainstream media, declaring them an "enemy of the American people" – a phrase taken straight from the totalitarian playbook. The more the media accuses Trump of lying, the more Trump's followers trust him. Of course the mainstream media hasn't exactly covered itself in glory in the social media age, engaging in a tabloid click-bait race to the bottom to chase advertising dollars lost to the web.

Fake news has actually become the victim of fake news, to the point where the term is now often evoked to describe any supposed fact with which someone doesn't agree.

Fit to print

So in the space of a few months the term fake news has become practically meaningless. Yet there's still a push to do something about it from the likes of Google and Facebook who realise that it's becoming a threat to their credibility as the de facto gatekeepers of the truth. Keep in mind that Mark Zuckerburg happily underplayed the impact of fake news in the early days, to protect Facebook's reputation.

Until now mob rule has decided what's true on social media, but facts don't work this way – the truth is not a democracy and you can't assume that what people read and share the most must be accurate and therefore is worth spreading. The world is round, whether you like it or not.

Before last year's US election, Google News was already working on a "Fact Check" concept to crack down on public comments which play fast and loose with the truth. The aim was to pick up media outlets blindly regurgitating the lies of public figures – or perhaps deliberately choosing not to question those lies – rather than to catch the outright fabrications of fake news sites.

Google News isn't manually fact-checking articles, instead it's giving news sites the option to include ClaimReview tags in their articles to indicate that facts have been checked. The articles must be transparent, with citations and references to primary sources, and Google has threatened to banish news sites from Google News – cutting off their lifeblood – if they abuse the system.

While it started in the United States and United Kingdom, Google's Fact Check program has recently gone global. It's already under attack as some people consider fact-checking a form of bias and political attack – as people who like to twist the facts don't like being called out on it.

Fact Checking efforts are also complicated by the fact that journalists can't always name their sources, and that some journalists are prepared to hide behind this in order to support the lies of their favoured politicians.

Rise of the machines

Google has also changed its search algorithms recently to punish sites which promote fake news. An artificial intelligence bullshit detector, designed to sniff out fake news, is perhaps more reliable than trusting people – although AI can have its own inadvertent bias, especially if it learns from people correcting its mistakes.

As with IBM Watson's efforts to help with skin cancer diagnosis, perhaps the solution is not to train AI to weed out fake news but rather teach it to identify stories which are clearly not fake – a much easier task. Then AI can hand its human masters a short-list of questionable stories rather than expecting humans to flick through every news story in search of lies and misinformation.

The grape vine

Of course Google's efforts will struggle to curb the spread of fake news directly through social media. Facebook is under pressure to do more, but its fake news tools might just exacerbate the problem.

Rather than relying on algorithms to identify potential fake news, Facebook is instead introducing tools allowing users to flag items as fake news. The system doesn't discriminate between fabricated news and biased news, plus it relies on people knowing that a story is fake.

Facebook's plan is clearly open to abuse, mob rule can't be trusted as people's opinions of fake news vary, plus some will maliciously tag accurate stories as fake. There's also the issue of bot accounts, or hacked accounts, enforcing the beliefs of their masters.

Then there's the question of whether Facebook's fake news rulings will be applied universally or tailored for each user, which would just reinforce the filter bubbles which ensure that people only hear what they want to hear. Often the most important stories are truths that people don't want to hear or believe.

Facebook says it also has a team of fact-checkers to investigate stories but it's been caught out in the past suppressing conservative news and using fact-checking services accused of left-wing bias.

Join the crowd

Rather than trusting the mainstream media or the average man on the street, Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales proposes to start yet another news service in WikiTribune. Hiring professional journalists and volunteer fact-checkers, the site will be supported by reader donations.

The fact that WikiTribune isn't relying on citizen journalists alone is telling. Citizen journalism was built on the idea than your average person could be trusted to tell the truth without being influenced by the mainstream media's vested interest in maintaining the status quo – it's a fair point, but in the era of fake news it's become clear that every citizen brings their own bias to the table.

While it's a noble idea, WikiTribune isn't really going to solve the problem. Even if it can ensure that it doesn't present fake news, it will be just another voice in the crowd. What we really need is to know which voices we can trust, and to combat political efforts to encourage mistrust in those voices which do speak the truth.

Sections of the mainstream media have abused public trust in recent times, following their own agendas and fuelling a click-bait war in which fake news could flourish. It all ties back to the original sin of giving away their content online for free, devaluing the truth and the important role which trained journalists play.

Now traditional media faces an uphill battle to earn back that trust, yet dwindling new room budgets and head counts make it harder for journalists to put in the time and effort required to uncover hidden truths.

Have you been caught out by fake news? How do you spot it and what's the best way to tackle it?