When you go online, you almost have to accept that various platforms will collect any and all data about you wherever they can. Ever since internet users have made the Faustian bargain to get free services in exchange for being shown ads everywhere, ad agencies and technology have worked tirelessly to show you the same old ad formats, but more “relevant” to you. Not only has this turned users’ data and habits into a product being sold, it has also given rise to a new kind of scammers: Those who will create whatever content needed to get eyeballs on it, and then make money off of ads. And thanks to Facebook and other platforms selling all your personal data and profiles as “targeting,” they know how to get you.

As it turns out, what works best is emotional content. And since the scammers only care about the ad impressions, they can freely create news content that does its best to get their targets riled up. Most fake news content started out as a ploy to not only get you to on the scammer’s site, but also to short-circuit your disbelief via (usually) anger, and share that link with your friends. All they need to do is buy a few ads, targeting the people their article is designed to exploit, and a new fake news story spreads like a literal virus through a social network.

Thus, fake news have become a real problem for our society. Not only because these articles are explicitly designed to tap into your emotions in a way that gets you riled up without thinking about it first, but also because refuting such articles is extremely hard. Thus, a lot of political movements have been blamed on the unchecked spread of fake news, fueling xenophobia and nationalism.

Except fake news cannot suddenly turn someone racist. Fake news can only tap into existing emotions and attitudes. Fake news only seemingly turned people racist overnight not because they weren’t before, but because fake news strengthened their previously secret beliefs, and gave them a way to express them publicly.

Fake news also exploits the ability of emotions to override your rational thoughts. So if someone was a bit unsure about immigration in their country, fake news allowed them to amplify this feeling into a full-on scare about roving foreigners raping and pillaging their home city, regardless of how safe it really was. Fake news is the confirmation for their bias, confirming what they want to believe, and also the fuel to make it worse. But still, fuel does nothing without a spark to light it in the first place.

Right now, there is no “solution” to fake news, and the problems it fuels. But it seems change will not be able to happen until we somehow learn how to break free of this dopamine-fueled online rat maze of social media and ad-supported news sites. We also need to learn how to experience long periods of uninterrupted time for work and thoughts again, and learn to use our pocket-sized computers as a tool that serves our bidding, not as a channel for large corporations to interrupt you with their latest attention-bait. Maybe then will be be able to again do great things and effect social change for good.

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