IT and Business Crime: Analyzing the Spread and Impact of Fake News

This report delves into the multifaceted issue of fake news within the realms of IT and business. It begins by defining fake news and categorizing its various forms, emphasizing its intentional nature and potential for misinformation. The report then explores the legal implications, highlighting how fake news undermines credible media and poses threats to societal trust. It examines the techniques used to create and spread fake news, including photo manipulation, video tricks, and data manipulation, and discusses the legal frameworks in place to combat it, specifically referencing Australian legislation and government initiatives. The report also analyzes the problems created by fake news, such as political polarization and damage to reputations. Through case studies and surveys, the report illustrates the real-world impact of fake news and the challenges individuals face in distinguishing between genuine and fabricated information. The report concludes by underscoring the need for increased awareness and countermeasures to mitigate the negative consequences of fake news.

Running head: IT AND BUSINESS CRIME
IT and Business Crime
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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What is Fake News
Fake news is defined as an article which is verifiably and intentionally false and
presented in the market to mislead the readers. It means intentionally fabricating a news
article. Fake news can be categorised in four parts generally. Those are:
Category 1: False, fake and regularly misleading websites which are published on social
media.
Category 2: There are some websites which circulates unreliable or misleading information.
Category 3: Some websites uses clickbait-y headlines and some media descriptions.
Category 4: Comedy websites that offers important criticism or commentary on political and
society issues having the potential of being shared as literal news.
But there may be situation that a misleading or false news which is entirely fabricated
(category 1), simultaneously it may be intentional misrepresentation of facts or data
(Category 2), it may also be partially accurate but uses an attractive title to catch the attention
of public ( Category 3), and have a critical impact on the society ( Category 4). The
Macquarie dictionary defined fake news as a disinformative and hoaxed material that are
published through websites to drive the web traffic and passing incorrect information via
social media. The immense spead of fake news has been recognized as global risk. The main
purpose behind publishing fake news is the intention to mislead to cause damage to an entity,
a person or make political or financial gain1. It often undermines the important media
coverage and makes it difficult for the journalists to create serious news stories. False news
are used as a tool to attract the readers or users and cause an advantage to advertisers. The
main reasons or scope of spreading fake news are the increased political polarization,
popularity of social media and easy access to the online advertisement revenue. Fake news
1 Shane, Scott. "From headline to photograph, a fake news masterpiece." The New York Times 18 (2017).

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can be distinguished by the falsity of its content and by the character of their online
circulation.
Is fake news legal
Fake news is a serious threat to the nation at large. Countries have taken some
significant steps in fighting fake news and its impact over the society. Legislations are used to
fight against spreading of fake news. Fake news is considered as illegal as it goes against the
right to know the correct information. As long as the real facts are presented before a person,
one can make up their mind. It destroys the credibility of an individual; if a person makes an
argument based on a false information, it may cause a harm in their integrity. Fake news have
no legal basis as it can cause hurt to lot of other people. It is an infringement of the right of a
person to have access to correct and sufficient knowledge about a thing2. It was found on the
Digital News Report: Australia 2018 that Australians thinks that it is the breach of the
responsibilities of journalists and media companies to fight fake news. 68% of the Australian
population thinks that Government should take a stand and solve the problem.
What problem does fake news create
The spread of fake news could be one of the biggest threat that the society may face.
One of the major issues that fake news create is that they might polarise the society during a
political event. Fake news can also have an impact over the international relations between
countries. Fake news has often led to be more believable than the truth and have caused
racism, intimidation, damage to reputation and harassment. It has resulted in a declination of
trust in true news.
2 Balmas, Meital. "When fake news becomes real: Combined exposure to multiple news sources and political
attitudes of inefficacy, alienation, and cynicism." Communication Research41.3 (2014): 430-454.

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In a recent case study, Sophie Mirabella, an Australian lawyer and former MP has
sued a rural Victorian newspaper for an article which had published a fake news3. The article
falsely accused her that she punished an opponent during a campaign while a photo
opportunity in the federal election of 2016. Mirabella has said to the jury that there was no
dispute that the defendant had got the thing wrong. Her barrister Georgina Schoff QC told
that the newspaper itself admitted that the article was wrong4.
Dr Claire Wardle, who is an expert on social media said at the Navigating the News
Conference in Hobart, where she was a guest speaker that fake news was being used as a
“weapon” against the media. She further mentioned that it is a global issue.
A case happened in 2009 in Australia regarding fake news. It was claimed in the
report of Deception Detection Across Australian Populations of a “Levitt Institute” that
Sydney was held as a most native city. In spite of the fact that the article itself had a cue
amongst the mathematical gibberish, a statement was there which stated that the result was
fully made up to be a fictional material using a process of revised truth. The Parliament of
Australia investigated into the concept of fake news, with regards to the issues relating to the
fake news which was spread around at the time of United States Election of 2016. The
investigation looks in the areas of Australia that makes the audiences most exposed to fake
news having into consideration the impact on traditional news articles. The inquiry tried to
evaluate the responsibility of the online advertisers and regulate the spread of the hoaxes5. By
this inquiry the parliament attempted to fight the threat of social media power over the spread
of fake news as it resulted into a negative effect on the public. In a findings of a global survey
of credibility and trust in institutions, it was found that consumers struggle really hard to spot
3 Younger, Emma. Abc.Net.Au, 2018, http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-04-26/claim-sophie-mirabella-pushed-
political-rival-not-true-court/9698736. Accessed 30 Sept 2018.
4 Theguardian.Com, 2018, https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2018/apr/26/sophie-mirabella-
defamation-case-hears-paper-published-fake-news. Accessed 30 Sept 2018.
5 Rubin, Victoria, et al. "Fake news or truth? using satirical cues to detect potentially misleading
news." Proceedings of the Second Workshop on Computational Approaches to Deception Detection. 2016.

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the differences between real news and fake news, and the trust over the media is as low as of
just 31% in the Australia. According to Steve Spurr, the head of Edelman Australia, the
declination in the trust in media had resulted into growing distastes for social media by the
public. As per his comment, 57% of the population in Australia is concerned about that fake
news is being used as weapon of propaganda. Also, 65% of them are not sure that how to
detect and fake news6. This has become such a major issue that the global average trust in the
traditional media of news is just 62%.
What are the techniques that are used to create fake news
By the recent times, the fake news has affected not only the media or the celebrity. It
is a global issue overall. Several techniques and tools are used to create fake news7. Some of
the techniques are:
Manipulation of photos: Photos of politicians and celebrities has been manipulated
over the times to create a hoax. At a first glance, they seem so convenient that people may
find it reasonable. Even it can be detected, it cannot be stopped in the first place from going
viral. In a BBC report it was found that, the altered images can affect the reader in such a way
to change their behaviour or memory.
Video tricks: Manipulation of video is also considered as one of the way to spread
fake news. For fooling the audiences, fake videos are created with voice impersonations.
Fake video destroys the trust of general public over a person or phenomena. People are tend
to see and share manipulated content as they are presented in such an appealing way to the
public. An example for this is the Synthesizing Obama Project, which was studied by the
6 Abc.Net.Au, 2018, http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-07-21/nuclear-secrets-and-deadly-coffee-australian-fake-
news-on-social/10002246. Accessed 30 Sept 2018.
7 Conroy, Niall J., Victoria L. Rubin, and Yimin Chen. "Automatic deception detection: Methods for finding
fake news." Proceedings of the 78th ASIS&T Annual Meeting: Information Science with Impact: Research in
and for the Community. American Society for Information Science, 2015.

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University of Washington. In the study, they found that the video was manipulated from one
of the speeches of Obama using a complete different video footage of a former US President.
Manipulated data: Some data are openly spread over the internet or media, which is
no way authenticate, reliable or correct. These are spread as a genuine data, and audiences are
convinced in a way to believe in the data that those data impacts their life as a whole8.
Use of the media: In the modern times, media is being misused to create and spread
fake news for a mischief purpose. The first think that comes into the mind after hearing the
word fake news, is the social media posts which carries implausible and fantastic stories9.
The media platform is used to spread misinformation.
What Law does apply to fake news
Australian security and counter-terrorism has reported that the changes in the law can
make a person jailed for 20 years for spreading hoaxes. The changes in the Australian
National Security Law will criminalise an attempt to undermine the ability of the media to act
in public interest10. As described by the policy experts, the legislation will make it illegal if
any person communicates or deals with an information that is likely to create harm to the
Australia’s interests. Australian Government has taken up some technological steps to combat
this issue such as machine learning and artificial intelligence and11.
The Australian Government has progressed to establish a “Select Committee on the
Future of Public Interest Journalism” that would identify and examine the effect of fake news
and countermeasures. The accountable parties under this proposal are the companies,
8 Chen, Yimin, Niall J. Conroy, and Victoria L. Rubin. "Misleading online content: Recognizing clickbait as
false news." Proceedings of the 2015 ACM on Workshop on Multimodal Deception Detection. ACM, 2015.
9 Shu, Kai, et al. "Fake news detection on social media: A data mining perspective." ACM SIGKDD
Explorations Newsletter19.1 (2017): 22-36.
10 Theguardian.Com, 2018, https://www.theguardian.com/media/2018/feb/07/australias-trust-in-media-at-
record-low-as-fake-news-fears-grow-survey-finds. Accessed 30 Sept 2018.
11 Australia’S Stake In Shaking Up Fake News, 2018, https://www.lowyinstitute.org/the-interpreter/australia-s-
stake-shaking-fake-news. Accessed 30 Sept 2018.

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technologies, online advertisements and others who could gain benefit from the
misinformation12. On the public hearing of 22 August 2017, Facebook and Google has made
a submission which includes action required and undertaken to combat fake news.
12COUNTERING FAKE NEWS A SURVEY OF RECENT GLOBAL INITIATIVES. (2018). [ebook]
rsis.edu.sg. Available at: https://www.rsis.edu.sg/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/PR180307_Countering-Fake-
News.pdf [Accessed 30 Sep. 2018].

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References
Abc.Net.Au, 2018, http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-07-21/nuclear-secrets-and-deadly-
coffee-australian-fake-news-on-social/10002246. Accessed 30 Sept 2018.
Australia’S Stake In Shaking Up Fake News, 2018, https://www.lowyinstitute.org/the-
interpreter/australia-s-stake-shaking-fake-news. Accessed 30 Sept 2018.
Balmas, Meital. "When fake news becomes real: Combined exposure to multiple news
sources and political attitudes of inefficacy, alienation, and cynicism." Communication
Research41.3 (2014): 430-454.
Chen, Yimin, Niall J. Conroy, and Victoria L. Rubin. "Misleading online content:
Recognizing clickbait as false news." Proceedings of the 2015 ACM on Workshop on
Multimodal Deception Detection. ACM, 2015.
Conroy, Niall J., Victoria L. Rubin, and Yimin Chen. "Automatic deception detection:
Methods for finding fake news." Proceedings of the 78th ASIS&T Annual Meeting:
Information Science with Impact: Research in and for the Community. American Society for
Information Science, 2015.
COUNTERING FAKE NEWS A SURVEY OF RECENT GLOBAL INITIATIVES. (2018).
[ebook] rsis.edu.sg. Available at:
https://www.rsis.edu.sg/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/PR180307_Countering-Fake-News.pdf
[Accessed 30 Sep. 2018].
Rubin, Victoria, et al. "Fake news or truth? using satirical cues to detect potentially
misleading news." Proceedings of the Second Workshop on Computational Approaches to
Deception Detection. 2016.

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Shane, Scott. "From headline to photograph, a fake news masterpiece." The New York
Times 18 (2017).
Shu, Kai, et al. "Fake news detection on social media: A data mining perspective." ACM
SIGKDD Explorations Newsletter19.1 (2017): 22-36.
Theguardian.Com, 2018, https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2018/apr/26/sophie-
mirabella-defamation-case-hears-paper-published-fake-news. Accessed 30 Sept 2018.
Theguardian.Com, 2018, https://www.theguardian.com/media/2018/feb/07/australias-trust-
in-media-at-record-low-as-fake-news-fears-grow-survey-finds. Accessed 30 Sept 2018.
Younger, Emma. Abc.Net.Au, 2018, http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-04-26/claim-sophie-
mirabella-pushed-political-rival-not-true-court/9698736. Accessed 30 Sept 2018.