From AI-generated composite images to deliberately misleading media reports, fake news is more than just a buzzword. It’s a real problem, one that is calculated to cost the global economy upwards of $78 billion annually, Dr Cordula Meckenstock, a German law professor, told an audience gathered yesterday at the Innovation Stage at IFA Berlin.
As moderator of a panel discussion entitled “Navigating the impact of fake news”, Dr Meckenstock welcomed a trio of guests, including journalist and filmmaker Ben de Pear, who noted that the impact of false or misleading information is more than a matter of wasted money.
“In the United States, for example, the levels of trust in news are somewhere around 50%, when they used to be 80 or 90%. And that’s really dangerous”, said Mr De Pear, a former television news editor who now works as Executive Editor for the award winning production company Basement Films.
Joining Mr De Pear on stage was Troy Treangen, CPO of the consumer intelligence company NIQ (formerly NielsenIQ), who spoke on how false information also impacts the business world. “Our job, at NIQ, is to basically be the unbiased, independent source of data for retailers and manufacturers,” he explained. “But a lot of people in companies, sometimes on purpose, sometimes by accident, actually send in bad data.”
In response, NIQ has had to create an array of monitoring tools to verify the information it receives. The panel’s third guest, Stephanie Burnett, knows first hand how much due diligence mainstream media outlets must carry out.
As Digital Verification Editor for the news agency Reuters, Burnett and her team are constantly experimenting with new tools. But detecting fake news starts, she said, with a basic question: “Does it pass the sniff test?”
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