Josh Marshall unpacks some of what we mean by "fake new" and the difficulties we have in countering it.
Two things stand out. The first is the role of motivated reasoning that informs people believing things that are patently untrue. Do people really believe that vaccines kill people? Or do many anti-vaxxers just see this as a useful cudgel to beat their political enemies? Certainly some people believe this, because some people are morons, but many more believe it because they want to believe it.
The second point was the oligarchic and monopolistic nature of media. Fox and it's imitators and Sinclair media dominant large portions of American media. This allows wealthy people to warp actual news consumption.
The second is more easily dealt with. Could we pass an anti-trust act that targets social media and legacy media with bipartisan support? Maybe. Republicans hate social media, for some reason, and you could "trick" them into supporting something that also breaks up the News Corp and Sinclair monopolies.
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