Yet, over 30 years ago, Jean Baudrillard was already contemplating the deficiencies of a growing information society. Put differently, fake news has arisen as a kind of cancerous growth of the information society. including the growth of digital media and platforms, such as Google and Facebook. They also note that the phenomenon of fake news is ‘a problem that must be understood in the wider context of how information is produced, how it is distributed, and how people engage with it in the public sphere’, 5 Ibid. As an alternative, the EU High Level Expert Group, who authored and compiled the report, use the term ‘disinformation’, broadly referring to ‘all forms of false, inaccurate, or misleading information designed, presented and promoted to intentionally cause public harm or for profit’. ultimately causing a breach of ‘constitutional integrity’ and ‘a risk for democracy’. Without any specific reference to Trumpism, the EU report goes on to name fake news as ‘a weapon with which powerful actors can interfere in circulation of information and attack and undermine independent news media’, 2 Ibid. $plit/C_2_documento_1140_upfDocumento.pdf, p. 1 Independent High Level Working Group on Fake News and Online Disinformation, A Multi-Dimensional Approach to Disinformation, (2018) available at.
Itself a misnomer, the recent EU Report on Fake News and Online Disinformation notes that fake news is ‘not only an inadequate’ term ‘but also misleading’. Today, ‘fake news’ has become a ubiquitous term. Yet, radical, nihilistic, prophetic, Baudrillard’s philosophical critique of post-modern society, and specifically his idea of the ‘hyperinformation society’ emanating from his more well-known concept of ‘hyperreality’, is surprisingly apt for understanding the current climate of fake news. Jean Baudrillard (1929-2007) is not the most often cited of the post-war French philosophers.
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