Liquid modernity Fake news, fake people, and real problems

Between The Lines

"We’ve discovered that falsehood travels farther, faster, and more broadly than the truth."

That’s what Sinan Aral, an MIT professor and co-author of a study on how false information spreads on Twitter, concluded in 2018. And his findings could just as easily apply to the entire digital ecosystem we now live in. Fake news spreads effortlessly across the internet, fueled by our own involvement. Beyond bots and coordinated disinformation campaigns, it’s our quick-trigger approach to retweeting, commenting, and sharing other people’s inaccuracies, speculations, and rushed conclusions that allows falsehoods to circulate at lightning speed.

"Even when we removed all the bots from our database, the gap between the spread of false and true news remained," noted Soroush Vosoughi, one of the study’s co-authors. Keeping critical thinking and reading comprehension levels low has always been the most effective way to influence public opinion for those pulling the strings throughout history.

Fake influencers

The battle for influence in the digital era has given rise to a whole new breed of digital players—influencers—who shape the reputations of trendy places and products. To expose the shaky foundation on which the supposed credibility of this recommendation network rests, in 2018 the H2H agency, which specializes in influencer marketing, set out to create a fake influencer from scratch. With just €500 spent on buying followers and meticulously crafting an authentic-looking profile, they created the account @almu_ripamonti, played by an actress. In just three weeks, the account had accumulated nearly 100,000 followers—mostly bots. Nobody noticed, and soon enough, the fake influencer was flooded with party invites, gifts, and all kinds of perks, all in exchange for a positive review. Every brand that approached her did so purely based on her follower count. As Luis Díaz, the director of the agency behind the experiment, explained:

for many players in this ecosystem, digital influence is all about “the more, the better”—more followers, faster recommendations, more self-promotion. Just as fake news spreads like wildfire thanks to our careless clicks, fake people win over brands with their fake followers.

Hacking the system

In today’s digital landscape, there are platforms that aim to democratize the evaluation and ranking of services and businesses by leaving the power in the hands of users. Sounds great in theory, but even these seemingly meritocratic systems have flaws that can be exploited by those who understand their inner workings.

Take Oobah Butler, a 27-year-old journalist at Vice by 2017 (when the experiment was conducted), who managed to turn his garden shed into the number one restaurant in London—without ever serving a single dish. He chronicled how he gamed Tripadvisor’s algorithms and filters, creating fake dishes using detergent, shaving foam, and sponges to simulate gourmet meals. As word spread, people were desperate to book a table, and Butler decided to go one step further by hosting a real (and only) dinner at his shed. With just four chairs, some cheap pre-cooked food, and a bit of flair, he made diners feel like they were experiencing something exclusive at London’s top-rated restaurant. Although The Shed At Dulwich has since been removed from Tripadvisor, the five-star reviews and glowing comments can still be found in the archives. And this wasn’t even the first time such a scam was pulled.
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