A Dream You Dream Alone Is Only a Dream: The Individual Perspective of Fighting Fake News

Abstract

The book 'Fighting Falsehoods: Suspicion, Analysis, and Response', by Irene Rubin, published in 2022, provides a unique perspective on a topic that contemporary societies around the world have been concerned about: the spread of fake news and how to fight it. The book adopts a perspective of individual empowerment of citizens and addresses possibilities and strategies to fight this problem individually.2016 may be the landmark year when the fake news problem gained public notoriety. It was the year when Donald Trump was elected in the United States and also when 'fake news' was named word of the year by the Oxford Dictionary. We may argue that this moment has dramatically changed the overall perspective on the political impacts of digital technologies. Around 2016, there is a decrease in the most enthusiastic views of social media that were mainly based on the possibilities of using these environments to organize protests and challenge established governments and systems, including the Arab Spring, Occupy Wall Street, the 'Indignados' (Outraged) Movement, and the 2013 protests in Brazil.