Perils of Misinformation in the Digital Age: The True Lessons of The Channel3Now Southport Fake News Scandal

Hi and welcome to this JK B'HAM Op-Ed Editorial for VPN: REGIONAL NETWORKS:

Amidst the common accusations of MSM bias, and celebrations of alleged "free speech", the truth remains that the press, and all those who are ever relied upon to report news to the public, are an important democratic institution with the vital role of informing communities.

The case of an how one unscrupulous news content provider helped spread information regarding the Southport stabbings, contributing to the recent riots, has recently highlighted the crucial importance of relying on trusted sources of information which adhere to true journalistic standards.

"Channel3Now News" prominently amplified fake news online, and its owner has been arrested and is under investigation.

But what we saw online, with many other accounts involved in the promoting unreliable information, prompts wider questions about the role of alternative media.

Why did so many people not choose to wait until verified information appeared in reputable mainstream sources? The popularity of so-called alternative media is a symptom of a distrust of mainstream news.

We must examine the health of the press, an important democratic institution, and the rise of alternative media, considering issues of trust, bias and the dangers of online echo chambers, - not only for their possible harmful effects on a few vulnerable, isolated members of society, but their potential effect on society itself.

We are in no doubt that a rebuilding operation is necessary, but this crucially must be understood as a two-way relationship, where it is not only news providers who have duties, but every individual who makes a choice regarding which media outlets they will turn to and empower, and which they will turn away from.

But let's go back to when, following the knife attack on children at a Taylor Swift themed yoga/dance camp, a false report emerged, claiming that the Southport stabbing incident was a horrific lone-wolf terrorist attack carried out by a radical Muslim asylum seeker by the name of Ali-Al-Shakati who had recently arrived in the UK by boat.

The false information was republished on the website and twitter feed of a relatively small news organisation, (3.4k followers) which provides readers with a selection of news stories from around the world.

'Channel3Now' itself shows no obvious bias on political, religious or racial grounds in the content it provides readers. It instead focusses on attention grabbing, dramatic and violent crime stories to attract the audience engagement it seekers to monetise via advertising revenue.

It is also not related to Russian propaganda and disinformation efforts to promote disorder and division in Western societies.

Their report that a 17-year old a Muslim asylum seeker was in police custody was widely quoted and the misinformation disseminated, particularly by online accounts which have a strong anti-Muslim or anti-immigration position. Many cited the relatively unknown news content provider as a possible, or probable source of authoritative information.

Was trusting Channel3News an honest mistake, that anyone could make? Would it be possible for a traditional, qualified media professional to get drawn in?

Channel3Now purports to be a reliable news source. However, on closer examination, there are a multiple warning signs which would have raised doubts in a cautious observer.

The lack of business address, lack of names of contributers, and the organisation's 'fake' name - there is no 'Channel 3 Now' broadcasting television news - point to it not being a legitimate journalistic entity operating along professional principles. Instead, these are hallmarks of a 'content factory' with no more journalistic professionalism or qualifications than Joe Bloggs, the average man on the street.

The particular 'Joe Bloggs' making money behind the Channel3Now name turned out to be one Mr. Farhan Asif, from Lahore, Pakistan. Investigators in Pakistan have since discovered that he also operated several other similar sites, with names such as Fox7Now.

In the drive to be the first to publish sensational news, one of his news outlets had previouly reported the malfunction of a popcorn machine, which produced a loud bang at an American shopping mall, as a shooting incident.

Unsurprisingly, several of the misleading, low-quality accounts operated by Farhan Asif had already been banned by social media companies.

His business approach, where a news content provider publishes a story, taking a chance that it may be untrue, is not something that legitimate journalism organisations will ever do. All original articles and videos by JK News, Black Country News and VPNLDN follow professional standards and check all facts before publishing.

However, in the modern digital age, this ability to verify whether a source of information is legitimate and trustworthy, and the discipline to hold back and not share a story because other people are saying that it is true, is not just a valuable skill for journalists seeking to establish themselves. It is something everyone using social media should be equipped with.

Accountability lies not only with those who make the news, but those who vote with their feet, choosing which news providers rise to prominence.

There should also have been doubts as to how C3N could have gotten and verified the information it claimed to have.

It is true that genuine established reporters, who have built up a network or reliable sources, may have more information than is generally available to the public, and which they in turn are often unable to reveal to the public.

Or they may have exclusive inside information received from locals who, in their professional judgement, are genuine, reliable witnesses, telling the truth without an agenda.

But each time a professional reporter claims to know something, but can't reveal how they know it, he or she are putting themselves in a vulnerable position, ready to lose something extremely vaulable - they are staking their hard-earned professional reputation. This is not the same when someone on social media posts , 'I heard from someone who was at the scene, and appparently...'.

That person is operating in a different framework: there is absolutely no chance of them having their professional journalistic credentials stripped from them for malpractice, as they have no credentials in the first place. And, like Farhan Asif in Lahore, they are just another Joe Bloggs with little or no reputation to lose.

If you repeat their claims, you risk ridicule. - Although, in the social media landscape, it can appear as if bad actors have nothing to lose from either inventing false news or sharing dubious news with no reliable source - an illusion encouraged by jokester internet trolls who pretend that a online fantasy land of no accountability is actually some noble empire of 'free speech'.

However, all such illusions were shattered in tragic and dramatic fashion in the UK recently.

Just because in the online realm, hate speech, slander, the speading of false information to incite hatred or even riots, and talk promoting violent uprisings, have become so widespread that it is not practical to prosecute every offence, it does not mean that long-standing British laws upholding law and order, as well as decency and integrity in public life, have been forgotten. Nothing that anyone in America might say about our laws being 'uncool' means that are in fact outdated, or cease to apply.

Regarding fears of falling foul of these supposedly 'Stalinist' laws, the advice from experts is relatively straightforward: if you can't stand in front of a judge and honestly claim that a comment you post online is lawful and reasonable, you should, quite simply, not post it online.

If that seems like a harsh restriction, bear in mind that professional journalists operate under even more restrictions, - something which is widely misunderstood.

For example, at the time of the Trump assassination attempt, there was a widespread meme accusing traditional media outlets of hiding the truth and not reporting honestly by being hesitant to suggest that someone had tried to kill Donald Trump.

This fundamentally misunderstands the job of journalists, who are required to not over-step many professional invisiblle lines. Contrary to popular understanding, in this case it was not the job of members of the press to tell people what they thought had happened. Instead, it was for official bodies to investigate, and then inform the press of the results of their investigations so their findings could be publicised.

This can be better understood when you realise that, for example, many hours after the Donald Trump assassination attempt, the official release from the Secret Service who were protecting Donald Trump basically said that 'Donald Trump was at a rally, and at that rally, gunshots were fired'. This was the "news", and this, nothing more, was what professional journalists were duty-bound to report.

When proper context is given, as news organisations with proper ethical standards will strive to do, readers can quickly understood, there was no hiding of the truth, or shaping or distortion of the narrative, as so many viral social media posts claimed.

This dull, technical and truthful explanation of what was happening is far less exciting than the conspiracy theory memes, which persistently reappear in the forms of "why haven't they named suspects? why have people not been charged? Why did they plead guilty, why weren't they given bail?" when these questions have simple, understandable explanations to anyone who understands ordinary legal proceedure in this country, as my colleague's recent article demonstrates.

It is partly for this reason that all of us at VPN, Black Country News and JK News are so motivated to embrace the challenge of our current age and, in true Conspiracy For Good fashion, empower audiences to understand the various forces operating in our world, including first and foremost the legal realities, which, when properly understood, serve as a key to understand much of what happens around us.

It is a challenging task, but it can't be fixed by some return to the past, by restricting the right to provide news to accredited organisations who are fit and proper, driven by the motivations to support democracy and foster the rational, informed citizens needed for democracy to function, reinstating ethical standards. We are past the age of gatekeeping.

People are used to a variety of news content providers, and there are positives to this. Smaller organisations or independent individuals are sometimes able to take more risks or bring light to controversial areas of legitimate concerns which major outlets may wish to avoid for fear of being branded racist.

There is an inherent distrust of gatekeepers, or giving power to regulators.

While these arguments are sometimes used as an cover for irresponsible behaviour and avoidance of accountability, it is right to distrust censorship designed to deny people's access to legitimate information, ideas and viewpoints, even if it dissents from approved, mainstream views.

But perhaps the main problem is, a focus solely on regulating news content providers would mischaracterise one of the fundamental problems of our age. For each fake news outlet and every hate speech account operating under the misappropriated banner of 'free speech' which is shamed out of existence or forcibly shut down, another will pop up to take its place. Rather than cut off the supply - impossible, when social media platforms offer such appealing incentives to those who provide news content without any genuiine desire to create informed, reasonable citizens - we must tackle the real problem and ask, WHY IS THERE SUCH A DEMAND FOR UNRELIABLE NEWS?

First, we can acknowledge that anyone can fall prey to the human desire to not miss out, and think, if others are spreading a story, you have to join in or be left behind. This is often bolstered by the false belief that, if a lot of other people are doing something, YOU won't get in trouble for doing it, even if you are joining in and doing something wrong. Many rioters, or those who egged them on online, have had a very harsh lesson shattering this illusion, with many now receiving prison sentences.

So, one reason for the appetite for false news is simple foolishness: consumers think to themselves, it isn't reliable, but it MIGHT be true, and if it is, then they could be are one of the people who reported it first, instead of being one who missed out. So people abandon common sense and take the gamble, going in search of the latest rumour.

But there are far darker and more sinister reasons, with more concerning consequences. Audiences can become addicted to a changeless diet of 'news content' that reinforces their biases while doing nothing to increase their understanding of the world.

While it may shock, stretch and exercise them emotinally, it does nothing to challenge, deveolp or practice their thinking skills or ability,

And most worryingly, this is often content seemingly designed to foster a sense of powerlessness and distrust, discouraging meaningful civic engagement. Instead of encouraging readers to understand the need to compromise - an absolute necessity for anyone who wants to participate in political processes or engage with their communities, and to generally 'make democracy work', such content keeps them isolated in online echo chambers, where they are led to believe that they are part of an exclusive group that understands the "truth." The sad fact is, they often have no idea that they are consumers of content carefully designed to keep them coming back for more, to learn just how bad the world is, while giving them no tools, no direction, and no incentive to engage in any meaningful action to make the world more like they want it to be.

Through all these aspects, this erosion of trust in traditional news sources and democratic institutions undermines the very fabric of society. And this is perhaps what we should be reflecting on more than blaming a Pakistani scam website for our problems here in the UK.

Because, in itself, fake news that an immigrant had carried out a terrorist act could have led to calls for better monitoring of terror suspects, withdrawal from the ECHR to allow British politicians better control over out borders, or any number of other meaningful actions.

The scenes we saw, of mosques being attacked, say less about the problem of fake news, and more about the breakdown of trust in authority, the turning away from those who, whatever their personal failings, whether or not they are are like us, whether or not they even like us, are qualified to provide reliable news and tell us what is going on in the world, and those who, whether or not they are like us, and whether or not they even like us, are capable of getting on with the job of forming a democratic govenerment which will more or less follow up on delivering a political programme which the public has asked it to deliver.

We need to see a rebuilding of trust, a new commitment to duty and adherence to professional principles. We need a return, not merely of nuance, but of a willingness to put things into a correct perspective where compromise is not seen as weakness and people are not fed dreams of taking back some mythical power which they never, ever had, to shape society and the counrty exactly how they think it should be. Instead we need to see people take back the power to be realistic, to compromise, to trust, to not reject experts of all variety in favour of trying to know everything and do everything themselves, perhaps with the aid of their favourite podcaster, but to re-establish a partnership, a contract with genuine, trusted, reliable partners who, instead of claiming to be heroes fighting against a system to reveal some secret truth, are instead carrying out a simple, old fashioned job of reporting the facts.

Well, that’s all for now. But until our next article, please stay tuned, stay informed, but most of all stay safe, and I’ll see you then.

Jason King

Birmingham City-Desk

Twitter (X) @JasonKingNews

Jasonkingnews@gmail.com