Hello, I'm Hugo. And I'm Sam. Welcome to
Fake News: Fact and Fiction from BBC
Learning English. In this series we're
looking at a topic that's on the tip of
everyone's tongues: fake news. Yes fake
news - we'll find out what it is and what it
isn't. We'll look at where it comes from
and how it can be dangerous and we'll
also show you
how you can become a fake news
detective with tips and suggestions for
developing your critical thinking skills.
We're starting today with the look at the
word fake itself - what does it actually
mean and how do we use it? Over to you,
Sam. Okay, well actually, thank you Hugo,
I want to show you something I prepared
earlier so it's really over to me, Sam
So what do we know about the word
fake? The word fake is first recorded in
the late 18th century.
It's slang used by criminals in
London with meanings connected to their
illegal activities. Today it can be an
adjective, a noun or a verb and is used
when talking about things that are not
real, not genuine but are designed to
make people think that they are real or are
genuine. So where do we see this word?
The news is full of stories of fakes - fake
works of art, fake concert tickets, fake
documents and fake qualifications to
name only a few. In some places you can
buy fake designer goods even knowingly
or unknowingly. However those looking
for a bargain could end up with
dangerous fake goods
or even fake medicines. All these kinds
of fakes can be called counterfeit.
Being fake isn't always for criminal
reasons, though. People and how they act
can be called fake too, like smiling,
laughing being injured and even, even,
even, yes, not confident but want to ace
that job interview - fake it till you make it.
And sometimes what is fake
is more ethical. For example, if you wear
fur is it real or fake? Fake fur is
regarded to be more ethical so much so
that real fur is sometimes labelled as
fake. So knowing what is real and what is
fake and what is fake fake can be tricky.
How do we choose what to buy, where to
go, even where to stay? Many of us look
at reviews online but even then we have
to watch out for fakes. The digital world
of social media and the internet are
places where it can be very difficult to tell
what is fake and what is real and that
brings us to perhaps the most common
phrase associated with the word fake
these days - fake news
Fake news - do you hear what I am
saying?
Something different here...Yes, so
obviously those were fake ears.
And that's a fake laugh but it's a comedy
classic fake ears really just to
demonstrate that not everything fake is
bad. And can I say that laugh was a
counterfeit laugh? That's a really good
question actually but no. So we use the
word counterfeit to describe real
objects, real things that are fakes or
for example documents money, paintings,
jewellery, they can all be counterfeit but
a laugh no matter how fake or false is
not counterfeit no. And you, have you had
any experience with fake things? So I did
have a friend who was setting up his own
business and he did ask me to write him
a fake review online. What happened?
Ah no comment. What about you? I
haven't bought anything fake or
counterfeit but I think we've seen you
know fake t-shirts, fake shoes, bags
everywhere right. But now let's turn to
fake news itself. Yes. So the words fake
and news as we know have existed
separately for a very long time but as a
journalist Hugo, when did you start seeing
them together being used as a thing. I
think we all became more familiar with it
in the 2016 election campaign in the US
because Donald Trump was a big fan of it
to essentially dismiss
anything he didn't like but you may be
surprised to find out that he wasn't
actually the first one to use it. Earlier
I was joined by Mike Wendling from BBC
Trending. He's written a piece called 'The
almost complete history of fake news' and
he was here to explain more about the
recent history of this term.
So people may be surprised that Donald
Trump wasn't you know the first one to
use it back in the election in 2016. No
actually it was his opponent Hillary
Clinton who was the first person to utter
the words fake news and she was
describing a process by which people
were inventing stories and they were
going viral on social media. These stories
were fake, they were being written... there
was a famous example that was
uncovered by BuzzFeed where these
stories were being
written by people in Macedonia and those
people weren't necessarily interested in
Trump or interested in bashing Hillary
Clinton. What they were interested in was
money. Through Facebook they could
draw people into their websites and then
make money off of advertising and
that's why they wrote these
sensationalised completely made-up
stories that we now have come to know
as fake news.
And misinformation you know fake news
has existed for many many
years right but now the difference is
social media and how easy it is to you
know spread this kind of disinformation.
That's right - there's always been
mistakes, propaganda, spin, or just lies by
political candidates, that has always
existed. This is a new type of
information and a new type of how
information spreads online and what that
means is that it can be spread faster
than ever before by people who might be
anonymous or might be thousands of
kilometres away. So it's really a
challenge for
media organisations, social media
organisations and really all of us to
try and figure out how to separate the
truth from the fiction. And you can find
out more about Mike's work on the BBC
Trending blog on the BBC News website
and also on the BBC World Service. Mike
thanks for joining us. Thank you.
So Sam, what did you make about what
Mike was saying there? I thought it was
really really interesting and he mentioned
words like spin and propaganda which we
are going to talk about more in a later
programme but one word I wanted to pick up
today was the term 'viral' that he used. So
viral is the adjective and it comes from
the noun virus which as you know is a
medical term and as you also know a
virus can spread really, really quickly
so when we use something viral when we
use the term viral, to go viral online, it
basically means it spreads really really
quickly across the Internet. Yes we all
know about it, very interesting. Now
before we wrap up for today, Sam, remind
us about the word fake. OK, absolutely.
So fake means not real it is not genuine
and grammatically the word fake can be a
verb. So you can fake a smile, you can
fake a laugh, as Hugo did before, you
can also fake being confident. It can
also be a noun so a picture is a fake,
the diamond ring my grandmother left me
was a fake for example, and it is
commonly used as an adjective so I was
talking earlier about the fake review
which I of course didn't write and also
if you're unlucky you might buy fake
tickets for a concert or things like
that. If we're talking about fake objects
like documents, money or copies of
well-known brands for example you can
also use the word counterfeit. Thank you,
Sam and that's all from us today. Do
join us again next time on Fake News:
Fact and Fiction.
Thank you, bye-bye. Goodbye.