Nikil Mukerji (LMU): What is Fake News? Marc Jonathan Blitz (Oklahoma City): Lies, Line Drawing and (Deep) Fake News. The imperfect truth about finding facts in a world of fakes: It used to make sense to believe something until it was debunked; now, it makes sense to assume certain claims are fake — unless they are verified. Roderick Howlett reviews A Political Theory of Post-Truth by Ignas Kalpokas. Forget fake news stories: False text posts are getting massive engagement on Facebook. Why do people fall for fake news? Why misinformation is about who you trust, not what you think. Vices of the mind: Richard Marshall interviews Quassim Cassam on fake news, conspiracy theories, and bullshit.
Keonyoung Park (Syracuse) and Hyejoon Rim (Minnesota): Social Media Hoaxes, Political Ideology, and the Role of Issue Confidence. Valeryia Mosinzova, Benjamin Fabian, and Annika Baumann (Berlin) and Tatiana Ermakova (Potsdam): Fake News, Conspiracies and Myth Debunking in Social Media: A Literature Survey Across Disciplines. Michal Bilewicz and Marta Witkowska (Warsaw), Myrto Pantazi (Oxford) Theofilos Gkinopoulos (Surrey), and Olivier Klein (ULB): Traumatic Rift: How Conspiracy Beliefs Undermine Cohesion After Societal Trauma? Matthew R. X. Dentith (Auckland): Secrecy and Conspiracy. YouTube unleashed a conspiracy theory boom — can it be contained? How a conspiracy theory about Democrats drinking children’s blood topped Amazon’s best-sellers list.
