What I learned when fake news got personal
I began to write about disinformation in 2016; for me, it was a real, but remote problem. Then, a few months ago, it got personal.
On September 20, a friend who works at a Georgian magazine messaged me that “journalists are talking” about my “statement.” I hadn’t made a statement, but I wasn’t surprised. I’m no politician, but my father — former president Mikheil Saakashvili — is a major opposition figure in Georgia, so hoaxes have tried to link me to politics before. This time, a Facebook page called “Corridor of Shame” had spread a fake statement by me saying I was entering politics and founding my own party. Hundreds of people had already shared it. Now, even journalists were beginning to ask questions.
I wanted to correct the record, but how could I get anyone to see my correction? Then I remembered an article I had read a few months ago.
As the editor of Spanish fact-checking site Maldito Bulo wrote in Poynter, fake news often comes “in the form of images, videos, memes and screenshots instead of URLs.”