Post-Truth Politics and Fake News

Fake news in post-truth politics:
The Oxford Dictionaries defined “post-truth” as “relating to or denoting circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief”.

Post-truth politics is a culture where debate focuses on appeals to emotions disconnected from the details of policy by repeating assertions of talking points to which factual reputes are ignored. This can be seen in an example from Brexit as the more remain campaigners attacked the Leave campaign’s exaggerated claim that EU membership cost Britain £350m a week, the longer they kept the magnitude of those costs in the spotlight.

How to avoid fake news/fight back:
An article by James Ball influenced by his book Post-Truth: How Bullshit Conquered the World lists step we can take in order to avoid falling for and spreading fake news:
Burst your Bubble:
break out of your social media bubble and follow a few thoughtful people who pot verified content and not those who shout the loudest. Trying to follow outlets outside of your own political opinion also can help.

Engage System Two:
System one is our initial instinctive reaction to new information whereas system two is our considered response. System one is effortless and often easy to process, making to easy to share any outrages or heartwarming story. This is why this content does so well online however if we take a few seconds to process the information we are less likely to share fake news.

Learn Some Stats:
Even a basic grasp on statistics makes you harder to fool, its making an effort to build a series of mental shortcuts to determine if figures are plausible. 

Treat narratives you believe as sceptically as ones you don't:
We tend to look more sceptically and fact check article/stories that don't aline with are own political beliefs fro example if your a Trump supporter your unlikely to believe Trumps tries to Russia are true. It may help to mentally swap in a different political or cause when reading articles on those we favour in order to identify if the story is credible and realistic.

Try not to succumb to conspiratorial thinking:
In the run up to Brexit Leave voters urged each other online to use pens in the ballots to avoid the government rubbing out their votes in order to remain in the EU. Conspiracy theories are the enemy of realistic coverage. Theories take isolated facts and use conjecture to join the dots to build elaborate narratives in order to show there target as dangerous.