In recent weeks, ‘fake news’ has become a huge point of discussion online. We’ve had pieces on foreign trolls running sites to dupe unwary readers with Hillary hitpieces. Endless articles have sprung forth about ‘Pizzagate’ and how this non issue shows the dangers of questionable sources. And heck, every few days or so another well meaning fool comes and explains why Facebook should filter out such content from its feed, or how their new browser extension will ‘fix’ the problem forever.

It’s like suddenly, the world has decided ‘fake news’ is the antichrist and bringing about the end of days. It’s all kind of insane.

However, there’s a major issue here.

Fake news is not a real problem.

Does that mean it doesn’t exist at all? No, of course not. There are sites peddling fake news and pretending it’s genuine. There really are a small group of sites posting obvious bullshit under fake names with a tiny discloser hidden way down in the footer. Like The Onion, except somehow less ideologically ‘honest’.

But they’re only a minority of sites. What’s more, they didn’t really influence the election.

What did were alternative media sites. Sites which took one look at the pro Clinton narrative and said ‘this would be terrible for America’. Sites that focused very specifically on being pro Trump or (previously) pro Sanders. Ones which focused on the other side of the political coin, and inspired a younger, more internet savvy generation to get to the polling booths or share their thoughts on social media.

And that’s the key here. That many people have stopped getting their news and information from the likes of CNN or The Guardian or the New York Times and now get it from other sources instead. Sources like popular YouTube channels, social media sites, independent blogs and news sites on both sides of the political spectrum.

This has cut the ‘old media’ (or corporate media) out of the loop. They’re increasingly irrelevant, with less and less people caring what they think or say. Just look at how many ‘sure fire’ predictions (Brexit not happening, Trump not winning nomination, Trump not winning presidency) have been shot down in flames as a result.

Above: Well, that didn’t happen, did it? But people ‘believed’ it would…

Which is then where ‘fake news’ comes to the forefront. Basically, they took a minor problem (a few satire sites getting popular by tricking gullible fools) and made it out as if that (not everything else) was what swayed the recent election. What caused Brexit. What’s responsible for everything they don’t like in the world happening.

And do you know why?

Because it’s a last ditch attempt to discredit their opposition before it buries them for good.

A clear as day one too. I mean, don’t you find it suspicious that suddenly, right after the election, the media is now flooded with stories about ‘fake news’? How everywhere online ‘fake news’ has gone from a minor issue to some sort of worldwide crisis that’ll ‘doom humanity’? Or how the lists of ‘how to spot fake news sites’ tend to focus on exactly the sort of production values a small independent blog or hobbyist channel likely couldn’t compete with?

Above: Like this one, saying a ‘WordPress site’ is unreliable. Despite WordPress powering 27% of the internet, including major news publications.

That’s all deliberate. It’s an agenda being pushed out by a dying traditional press.

And what’s more, it’s happened before.

Don’t remember? Okay, let’s go back to 2014 and GamerGate. That huge controversy that nearly blew up the gaming media and community after a string of scandals and a bunch of flame wars on social media.

Right after that, we got another ‘narrative’ being forced in the same way. ‘Gamers are dead’:

Just like the recent ‘fake news’ scandal, the same symptons occurred. Thousands of ‘independent’ websites and publications pushing a message, this time that ‘gamers’ (referred to as the nerd basement dweller stereotype) were ‘irrelevant’ and that the sites and developers shouldn’t appeal to them.

Just like with the recent ‘fake news’ scandal, it was all a bunch of crap. Gamers weren’t ‘irrelevant’, heck, they were most of the people keeping the triple A game development industry in business. Or perhaps more importantly, the people keeping the Kotakus and Polygons of the world in business, regardless of how much they tried to distance themselves from them.

‘Fake news’ is ‘Gamers are dead’ 2.0. A bunch of panicking from a corporate press terrified of the young upstarts taking away their audience en masse.

But hey, I shouldn’t be surprised. To some degree, Brexit and Trump were basically ‘GamerGate 2.0’ and ‘GamerGate 3.0’. A huge panic among the establishment that led to those classed as having ‘wrongthink’ being written of as racists, sexists, bigots and trolls. The exact same tactics were used by both sides in all three cases, and they all led to the mass media’s worst nightmare coming true.

Calling it fake news and trying to set up ‘systems’ to remove it from social media sites, search engines and ad programs is nothing more than a transparent attempt to censor or filter out competitors to the larger media organisations. Another example of an incumbent trying to put up barriers to entry against the ‘disruptive’ forces eating their lunch.

So don’t fall for this fake news panic. It exists, but it’s nowhere near as big a problem as people make it out to be, and didn’t ‘cost’ Clinton the election.

Thank you.