- Okay people, we got a problem.
Fake news is everywhere, so let's talk about
the biggest stories that people were convinced were real.
At 8pm, on October 30th 1938, Orson Welles
put on a broadcast that has become known
as one of the biggest hoaxes of all time.
Welles adapted H. G. Wells' 1898 novel,
The War of the Worlds into a radio drama
made up of breaking on the scene reports
of aliens invading New York city and New Jersey.
News reports around the country in the days
after the broadcast, reported that there
had been mass hysteria and that the highways
were jammed with people fleeing.
But, as it turns out, all of the reports were fake.
The War of the Worlds broadcast was actually
a scheduled episode of the Mercury Theater on air.
Now while some people believed that Martians with Death Rays
were wiping out the human race,
the program only had a small audience
and there weren't actually any reports of mass hysteria.
Just a few panicked people who were freaked out,
after they tuned in late.
In the late 700s, the Catholic church
was trying to take over control of
European states from the ruling class.
To get the upper hand, the church claimed
that they had already had the rights to the land,
thanks to the donation of Constantine.
A letter written by the Roman emperor,
Constantine I, in the fourth century.
As a thank you to Pope Sylvester I,
for curing him of his leprosy and converting him
to Christianity, Constantine gave the church
ownership and political control of land
in Europe, Asia and Africa.
And for centuries, everybody bought it.
It wasn't until 1440, that the Italian Catholic priest,
Lorenzo Valla, proved that it was fake
and really written in the mid-eighth century
because certain words and phrases
wouldn't have been used or even invented yet.
The church covered it up for years,
but eventually, admitted the truth.
Even though, many people insist it was real.
But it's cool, everybody.
That's the first time the church ever covered something up.
During the 2016 American Presidential Election cycle,
bipartisan fake news sites, started popping up online.
The Denver Guardian claimed to be the oldest
news publication in Denver and the site looked legitimate,
but only had one news story that was
posted on November 5th, just days before the election.
The article entitled, FBI agent suspected
in Hillary Email Leaks, found dead
in apparent murder suicide, contained
quotes from sources like Police Chief, Pat Frederick
from Walkerville, Maryland, neither of which existed.
The Denver Post and NPR exposed the Guardian as fake
and run by 40 year old, Jestin Coler,
who also owned other fake news sites.
But that didn't stop the story from being shared
over half a million times and having over
15.5 million interactions on Facebook,
making it one of the most shared fake news story of 2016.
Everybody please listen to me, this is important.
Think before you share stuff on Facebook,
a lot of it is fake, Mother of God!
On November 8th 2016, India's Prime Minister
announced that the country, was introducing a
2,000 Rupee note, but that all 501,000 Rupee notes
were being taken out of circulation
and would become invalid at Midnight.
The move was meant to stop illegal counterfeit operations
but the short notice led to confusion and panic.
India actually has over 50 million Whatsapp users
and a rumor that the new note,
was actually a spying device, quickly went viral
across the messaging app and social media.
India's Reserve Bank was quick to call the claims false,
but even the mainstream media started reporting the claim,
that the new note was equipped with a Nano GPS Chip,
that could track you nearly 400 feet below ground.
The incident ended up bringing light
to just how fast, news stories spread over the internet
and the impact of low journalistic standards.
On August 25th 1835, the New York Sun newspaper,
published the first of six great
astronomical discoveries article.
Which said that alien life, had been discovered on the Moon.
What made the story so convincing,
was that the famous real life astronomer,
Sir John Herschel had made the discovery
while looking through his seriously impressive telescope.
The articles were supposedly written by
Herschel's colleague, Dr. Andrew Grant,
and claimed that the Moon was covered
in crystal caves, rivers and forests
and even had exotic creatures like winged humanoid bats,
two-legged beavers and unicorns.
At the time, people were obsessed with astronomy
and theories on alien life and
The Sun's subscription sky-rocketed.
But, in 1840, Reporter Richard Locke,
said that he wrote the story to increase sales
and to mock those alien believers.
Why is there such a lack of critical thinking skills?
People with bat wings don't exist.
In 1915, a rumor spread that Germany
was using the bodies of dead soldiers
to render fat for candles, lubricants and soap.
Now, Germany, of course, denied it.
But the story was printed without proof
in newspapers in France, Britain and America.
In April of 1917, the Daily Mail and the Times newspapers
claimed to have an anonymous source,
who had visited a so called, "corpse utilization factory"
the Times also cited a story in a German paper,
by Reporter Karl Rosner, who had visited a corpse factory
and saw "kadavers" with the K.
But, at this time, cadavers with a C,
referred to animals like horses, not humans.
But the British still used this story
to convince China to join in the war against Germany.
Which they did on August 14th 1917.
They were eventually proven to be fake,
but the Nazis used it as "proof" that the British
had made up the holocaust during the second World War.
It's September of 2009, news outlet across
Australia, including the Associated Press,
reported on a scientific study entitled,
Deception Detection across Australian populations.
It was supposedly published by Dr. Carl Varnsen
at the Leavitt Institute and studied
how gullible Australians were, with Sydney
ranking as the most naive city in the whole country.
Now, the report looked pretty official,
but it had a big clue that the whole thing was fake.
Hidden in the scientific methodology,
was the line, "these results were completely
made up to be fictitious material,
through a process of modified truth and credibility notes."
in other words, y'all are idiots!
Sydney's dummy status caused a lot of public outcry,
which kind of showed how naive everyone was,
which was the idea and that you
should always fact check before reporting.
It turns out that the whole thing was a big hoax
to promote a new comedy news TV show.
You maybe surprised to learn that on of the founding fathers
of the United States of America,
was also one of the earliest spreaders of fake news, or not.
In 1782, America was in the middle of the war
of independence against Great Britain
and Ben Franklin was looking for
creative ways to gain support.
He wrote a completely false article
about British Allied Native Americans
scalping 700 defenseless revolutionary soldiers,
women and children and even included
a fake letter from real life war hero,
John Paul Jones, to support his story.
He printed it in fake copies of the Boston newspaper,
the Independent Chronicle and sent it
to all of his colleagues.
It was then re-printed as fact, in many American newspapers.
The story was widely believed and spread
false ideas about Native Americans
as savage, un-American sympathizers.
Oh, Benny boo-boo, why you do this, that's not nice.
By 2014, only 1% of Myanmar's population
had the internet, but by 2016, that rose to 20%.
There are even magazines that print
popular online stories, true or false.
Now, Myanmar has a Buddhist majority
and there has been tension and violence
with the country's Muslim minority.
In 2016, fake news stories and pictures
of Muslims being tortured, was spreading.
But, most of the photos were taken
from not only, unrelated events
but completely different countries.
Making it worse, is that at the same time,
there were news stories about Muslims
committing terrible crimes against Buddhists.
At first, neither were true, but
in an investigation by the journalist Cheryl Frankel,
found that the stories did have a direct impact
on an increased in hate crimes and violence towards Muslims.
This include, burning down Muslim villages
and murders of at least 70 people.
In late 2016, posters on 4chan and Reddit,
spread a conspiracy theory that a pedophile
sex-trafficking ring, involving members
of the Democratic Party, was operating
out of the Comet Ping Pong pizzeria in Washington D.C.
It was uncovered after Hillary Clinton's
campaign chairman, John Podesta's emails
supposedly with coded messages about the sex ring,
were leaked by WikiLeaks.
The story was of course, debunked
and D.C Police said it was all fake.
But, it still went viral on Twitter and Facebook
and even in the Turkish Press.
Comet's owner, James Alefantis,
started to get death threats and on December 4th 2016,
28 year old, Edgar Welch, opened fire in the pizzeria.
Now, luckily, no one was hurt.
But, Welch said that he wanted to self-investigate
the claims and only surrendered once he believed
that there weren't any child sex slaves being held hostage.
Okay, there should be a law that
before you're even allowed to log onto the internet,
you have to put on your critical thinking cap.
Think people, damn it!
But as always, thank you guys so much for watching this.
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I'm going to have a brand new video for you tomorrow
at 12 West Coast Time, three Eastern Standard Time.
So make sure you come back to my channel then,
have a great day, I will see you then.