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Fake News

cliveh

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Do you think Photoshop was a major factor regarding the birth of fake news? If you can't believe what you see, why should you believe what you read, or what people say?
 
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Photofakery is as old as photography.
 
“Fake news” has been going on for many generations before us (and before PhotoShop).
 
War of the worlds happened on the radio
but that has nothing to do with fake news
fake news is when someone claims the truth is a lie,
because that is what their audience wants to hear.
 
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In the land of the blind a one eyed man will be king.
You need to get your information broadly and understand the sources biases. People will believe what they want to believe.
 
No. Stupid people who can't fact check.
 
There is no such thing as fake news. Think about it. The word news implies that it's true. In my day, we called fake news lies, because that's what it is, and that's what it is now, and always.

Our language in the U.S. is under attack more than the country itself, and as Orwell knew, language is key to having a free population, or one that is brainwashed by the government, culture, social media, etc, and does what IT says to do. It has really gotten out of hand. The Dixie Chicks changing their name because all of a sudden the word Dixie is about slavery? No, it isn't. Only is some PC wannabe language police person's pea brained mind. Nor is a Black person an African-American. This 2 word catastrophe made me mad the moment I heard it, as it did my Black wife. If you see a Black person in America, how do you know they're American? They could be French, Haitian, Cuban etc. We all came from Africa one way or another it seems according to all the research. Calling someone an African American is the worst form of language colonialism.
 
Before Fauxtoshop, they did it with scissors and Elmer's glue, ala National Enquirer. Even the author of the Sherlock Holmes stories, Arthur Canon Doyle, was fooled into belief in the existence of fairies by a faux photo done by three pre-teen sisters. Guess he wasn't much of a real detective himself ! Before that, reporter sketches moved the crowds propagandistically. Public support for the Spanish American War was drummed up by a Hearst "yellow press" newspaper sketch of a fictitious event. Long before that, clumsier sketches were involved on both sides of the Jefferson vs Adams election, and before then, as the means to vilify Louis XIV and Marie Antoinette prior to the French Revolution. People believe what they want to believe. It's just gotten a lot worse when a lot of bored people have nothing better to do during a pandemic than soak up this kind of nonsense. And I stopped subscribing to National Geographic when they started publishing digital comps. In that case, these were always clearly labeled as such, and not deceptively; but they're now everywhere, and why pay for a subscription to just more of the same?

I don't know of any hypothetical cure except to pass and enforce a law against Felony Stupidity. But if we truly understood even cave paintings and pictographs tens of thousand of years old, somebody was probably expressing something nasty or libelous about another person somewhere in those. It seems endemic to our species.
 
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For Drew's reference, see: Cottingley Fairies.
Photoshop began as a very powerful graphics editing program, that had some photographic applications.
It still does.
And while discussions about the role of digital editing tools in changes in the ethics and philosophy of photography are on point for this site, arguments about politics and societal values and the use of language in relation thereto have the potential of sending this thread quickly to the (Soap) Penalty Box.
 
The term “fake news”, as currently used, is an attempt to deny that something is true, even when there is evidence that proves it, i.e. it’s an attempt to gaslight people. It doesn’t refer to trying to fake something. It has a close cousin called “alternative facts”.

So no, photoshop has nothing to do with “fake news”. The vast majority of attempts to fake something simply use selectively edited audio/video.
 
Reputable news sources do not allow changes to photos such as cloning in and out objects. They want to present news honestly. Cropping and adjustments to lighting are usually allowed however. It's up to the editors to monitor these issues. NatGeo had big issues along that line in the past and has fired photographers who faked their shots.
 
Probably democratised the creation of fake news from highly specialised very skilled darkroom work into something everyone can do
 
But a photo can tell 1000 words...
 
awty said:
In the land of the blind a one eyed man will be king.
You need to get your information broadly and understand the sources biases. People will believe what they want to believe.
Click to expand...

In the land of the blind a one-eyed man is at a considerable disadvantage after dark.
 

Perhaps "alternative facts" instead of "fake news" would have been better and have more meaning in my original question?
 
In most cases photographs illustrate, they don't reveal something that isn't known.
Some exceptions exist - Edgerton's extreme slow motion studies, and surveillance photos come to mind - but photographs without accompanying narrative rarely reveal truth or lies, just glimpses of what reality might be like.
Manipulating an image can support a false narrative, but without the narrative people are rarely misled.
 
cliveh said:
Perhaps "alternative facts" instead of "fake news" would have been better and have more meaning in my original question?
Click to expand...
I really wish you would clarify your intent. Even edited and using another word the OP is vague/ambiguous and reads like an attempt to spin up people. No offense intended, of course.

… and in reply to the new last sentence… people have lied and told mistruths since the dawn of humanity. “Trust but verify”… it’s wisdom for now, wisdom for the future, and was wisdom for the ages. And maybe even back in the pre-human era. I’ll ask my brother and let you know his reply to that guess.
 
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Sorry to mislead and I should have given more thought to the exact wording of my OP, but alternative facts is a better definition as to my original question.
 

What is your definition of “fake news” and how did you arrive at it?
 
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