Summary (from inside book –non available on Goodreads):
Discovering the truth has never been easy…From Ancient Egypt to the French Revolution to today, fake news has always been around. And in today’s world, with our unprecedented access to information, the phenomenon is more powerful and present than ever. But finding the truth is still possible.
In True or False, former CIA analyst Cindy L. Otis guides readers through the impact of fake news over the centuries and empowers them to fight back by sharing lessons learned in over a decade working in intelligence.
With this comprehensive guide, you too can learn to find the truth and fight back against fake news!
Review:
I’m not normally a nonfiction reader, but I’ve been a lot more interested in nonfiction this year. This book was incredibly interesting and relevant to everything going on today. Nick and I have family that have worked for the CIA, and we have such respect and appreciation for what they do. I also know how hard it is for someone who used to work for the CIA to publish a book. To say I was curious about this annalists perspective on fake news would be an understatement.
And then I started the book…. I couldn’t put it down. The first half read more like a history of journalism then just a history of fake news. To see how leaders, governments, kings, rebellions, and individuals have used the news over time to manipulate people is just insane. News has been manipulating people since before newspapers even existed, let alone Facebook. Pharaohs in Ancient Egypt used fake news! I had no idea. To learn about it’s evolution in this way was just so unique and mind boggling for me.
Of course it all culminated in the 2016 United States presidential election. I learned that “6.6 million tweets provided links to publishers of fake news and conspiracy news. Interestingly, 65 percent of the fake news links that spread on Twitter during the election came from the same ten fake news websites. …” and “it means that false information spread farther and reached more people than real news did ahead of the election. And it was not that there were thousands of fake news sites pushing it out. Most of the fake news came from the same key fake news websites and social media accounts. But they would not have had the reach they did without real people who shared the articles on social media and visited their sites” (145).
The book lists the top 10 fake news stories, and I hadn’t heard of most of them. They are so absurd to me. But, people read them as truth. Also, A big take away for me from this book was that, fake news doesn’t change people’s minds; it works at people’s insecurities that already exists and makes them believe things harder.
Also, this book made me so much more fearful of Russia, a country who apparently has been a player in the fake news game since way before Facebook, and played a major role in the 2016 election. According to Otis, one of the IRA’s (Russia’s Internet Research Agency) big jobs was dividing the Democratic party after Hilary became the nominee. When Sanders lost the primary election, IRA accounts went to work on Sanders supporters, their goal being to turn them against the Democratic Party and discourage them from voting for Clinton, so Trump would get more votes.
The author also explains that fake news isn’t news that you don’t agree with. The difference between news and fake news is intent. Fake news is intending to deceive. When a French King or United States President doesn’t like what is said in an article, they can’t just say it is fake news. That’s not the right word. Calling something fake, when it’s not just makes people doubt everything in the media more.
The second half of the book is about handling this doubt. Otis shows readers how to figure out if something is fake or not. For instance, she explains that memes are not news. (Side note: a lot of political joke memes are created in Russia). She lists fact checking sites you can use. She shows how to check things on Instagram, what to look for in a URL, what red flags are giveaways, etc. I have to admit, she goes into way more detail than I am willing to spend time doing… A lot of figuring out what is fake takes time. However, I have found myself looking a lot more closely at the news articles I’ve been reading. I’m a lot less likely to share an article, or a Meme. And I look up the details of the authors of articles now. So, has this book helped me? I’d say certainly!
This book is written for a Young Adult audience. I wish I had this book in high school. But, I also wish I could give it to everyone I know (kids, teens, adults especially). It’s maybe one of the most important books I’ve read in years. I learned a lot from it. I took a way a lot on a subject I thought I was already pretty solid on: research. And it was unbelievably fascinating. Sadly, I don’t think fake news is going anywhere. I think it’s going to get worse. Why not use all the tools we can to fish out the real from the fake? This was a super helpful tool. I highly recommend it. It was easy to read and I read it in one weekend. I give it a 10/10.
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