Responding to Fake News: Is There an Alternative to Law and Regulation

Discussion and debate about the origin and meaning of the term “fake news” is complicated, complex and dynamic. The paper will engage to a limited degree with this notion, bearing in mind that the origin(s) of any word/phrase is usually contested and there is a distinction between the existence of a specific word/phrase vs. the phenomenon it seeks to capture. Robert Darnton suggests that “the concoction of alternative facts is hardly rare, and the equivalent of today’s poisonous, bite-size texts and tweets can be found in most periods of history, going back to the ancients.” And the Huffington Post reports that Merriam-Webster “sees no need to even consider it for entry in the dictionary as a separate term.” Apparently, it is “self-explanatory and straightforward.” So why didn’t it exist before? Well, Merriam-Webster has the answer to that, too: “the word fake is also fairly young. Fake was little used as an adjective prior to the late 18th century.”