Hoax, conspiracy, propaganda, or just a moneymaker for Macedonian teenagers? The definition of fake news has been debated to death since the election. But that debate has mostly referred to one thing: the spread of inaccurate, misleading, or otherwise invented articles passed as real news. The fake news conversation has taken place in the realm of words, but that’s missing a big part of the story. Much of the content that circulates on Facebook are images, often memes.
Whatâs in a meme? Memes are built for social media, and for viral sharing. They typically combine an image with big, block letters. Theyâre not attached to an article, and thereâs often no way to trace their source. And while Facebookâs algorithm is notoriously elusive, it seems to favor images and video over text; images have the potential to reach more readers than articlesâwhether fake, real, un-partisan or hyper-partisan.
Take, for example, the most-shared post on Breitbartâs Facebook page in 2016:
Posted by Breitbart on Friday, November 11, 2016
The postâs implication is that while Democrats vilify Republicans, Democrats are the ones who riot, beat innocent voters, destroy property, and torch American flags. But it doesnât say so outright.
This post was shared more than half a million times. By comparison, the most-shared article link on Breitbartâs Facebook page had 97,000 shares. In fact, on Breitbartâs Facebook page, images and videos are overwhelmingly more popular than links. Images made up just 5 percent of Breitbartâs total posts in 2016, but they accounted for half of the pageâs most-shared posts.
Breitbart’s total Facebook posts for 2016
Breitbart’s 100 most-shared Facebook posts in 2016
Total shares from Breitbart’s Facebook posts in 2016
In other words, although Breitbart posted 12 times more links out of Facebook than images and videos combined, images and videos account for 79 percent of the total shares out of these top 100 posts. This disparity is even greater when you sum up the total shares of those 100 posts.
While Breitbart is a partisan news site and not explicitly a generator of fake news, this type of content sometimes hardly resembles news. Take the second-most-shared Breitbart post of 2016, from July, shared 218,000 times by December 31:
***UNPRECEDENTED CORRUPTION***
Posted by Breitbart on Tuesday, July 5, 2016
Hillary Clinton was cleared by the FBI. Bill Clinton and Loretta Lynch met on a plane. But Breitbart implies causality by putting those two facts next to each other, overlaid on a triumphant photo of Hillary Clinton that has nothing to do with the events referenced. Breitbartâs caption to this photo is â***UNPRECEDENTED CORRUPTION***.â There is no date on the photo itself, no attribution to Breitbart, and no context. A reverse-image Google search comes up with hundreds of similar memes that overlay white text on this same image.
Whatâs more, Breitbart explicitly aims to be shared as widely as possible. In August, Breitbart launched a âWe are Breitbartâ Instagram page, which Breitbart News Editor-in-Chief Alexander Marlow described as âdigital âammunitionâ to blastâ across social media. From Breitbartâs own article:
âConservatives often ask, âHow can I help break Establishment Mediaâs stranglehold and get the truth to Americans who need it?ââ says Marlow. âThe answer is simple and powerful: follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and now Instagram and share and blast the digital âbulletsâ we provide for you far and wide. It worksâand Establishment media are taking notice.â
In effect, Breitbart fans are encouraged to share pieces of information without context in order to break the existing media structures. And Facebook is helping them do it.
Related: 7 photos that captured the absurdity of the election
Out of the top 10 shared posts on Breitbartâs Facebook page, nine are images and one is a video. Only one features a image of Trump. One calls vice-presidential candidate Tim Kaine âcreepy.â Three focus on the FBI investigation of Clinton, and two speak out against Obamaâs apology to Japan for dropping atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki:
Posted by Breitbart on Friday, May 27, 2016
There are a few misleading claims this image makes. First, the idea that a million lives were saved by dropping the bombs is speculative (a video on Breitbartâs Facebook page specifies American lives–even more questionable). Second, this image does not appear to be of Hiroshima or Nagasaki. But perhaps that is irrelevant to the purpose of the image, which is to put words in the mouths of Breitbartâs viewership.
In December, Facebook announced partnerships with FactCheck.org, Snopes, and other organizations to fact-check and flag articles. But according to PhillyVoice, FactCheck.org says it found just four false stories in over a month of looking at flagged posts, and that âIf he had a larger staff, [Director Eugene] Kiely said expanding to images and memes would be a logical move.â
Indeed. These readymade, easily alterable images are the perfect vessel for the spread of false information.
Breitbart’s 10 most-shared posts of 2016
#1Â
Posted by Breitbart on Friday, November 11, 2016
#2
***UNPRECEDENTED CORRUPTION***
Posted by Breitbart on Tuesday, July 5, 2016
#3
Posted by Breitbart on Friday, October 28, 2016
#4
Posted by Breitbart on Friday, October 28, 2016
#5
***DEAR HIROSHIMA: OBAMA MAY BE SORRY, BUT AMERICA IS NOT***
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#6
Posted by Breitbart on Friday, May 27, 2016
#7
Posted by Breitbart on Tuesday, March 22, 2016
#8
Posted by Breitbart on Monday, February 8, 2016
#9
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#10
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Breitbart’s 5 most-shared links of 2016
#1 (13th most-shared post overall)
Fact-Check: FALSEIndeed, Clinton’s “ninety percent” claim is false according to her troubled charity’s own tax filings.
Posted by Breitbart on Wednesday, October 19, 2016
#2 (15th most-shared post overall)
The Doctor is In!
Posted by Breitbart on Wednesday, November 9, 2016
#3Â (20th most-shared post overall)
“Secret Service officers told at least one source that she began yelling, screaming obscenities, and pounding furniture….
Posted by Breitbart on Tuesday, November 15, 2016
#4Â (21st most-shared post overall)
"…every time you spend $8 on 1 of their flavors you're lining the pockets of cop hating communists."
Posted by Breitbart on Friday, October 7, 2016
#5Â (30th most-shared post overall)
"After witnessing 50 years of failure from the Democratic Party, compounded by a growing hostility to religion in their…
Posted by Breitbart on Friday, November 4, 2016
Pete Brown, senior research fellow at the Tow Center for Digital Journalism, contributed content analysis to this article as part of the Platforms and Publishers project, which receives funding from the MacArthur Foundation, the Open Society Foundations, the Knight Foundation, and Amy Abrams.
Nausicaa Renner is digital editor of CJR.