Mal Fletcher comments on the rise in phoney news and analyses the potential future implications.

Techno-refuseniks will form a subset of Generation Edge, but an important one. In an age of data-mining and personal data overload, the refuseniks will begin to pull back from the heavy Cloud engagement that otherwise defines their age group.

They will identify with the cause of the many people on earth for whom even our mundane, everyday technologies remain a distant dream.

The UN has said that by 2025, 51 percent of the world will own a smartphone. This is quite a stunning possibility when you consider that the first of these gadgets appeared in 2007. However, if true this figure suggests that 49 percent will still have no access to smartphones and the opportunities they provide.

The techno-refusenicks will not be neo-Luddites; most will not completely disavow technology. They will stick with enough cyber-connectivity to guarantee their ability to buy, sell, work and maintain some relationships online.

They will, however, refuse to see themselves - or allow others to see them - as a product of their online data.

The growth of fake news and the uncertainty about what has veracity online, will motivate more young people to identify themselves with at least some of the techno-refusenik cause.

Much is written about the internet's propensity for self-correction. The theory holds that if a site or group is constantly pushing false information, the online collective will move against it or them. The marketplace of ideas will even everything out.

We may not be able to take this for granted for much longer, however - especially if a sizeable constituency of sceptical, Cloud-savvy digital natives removes itself from the online conversation.

Facto-Refuseniks

The second counter-shift to Smart Age technologies will involve the emergence of what I call facto-refuseniks. These people, of diverse ages, will feel suspicious of any news information that has not been garnered by people with whom they are relatively close.

This is already happening to a degree, of course, within the world of social media. However, at this point most of the real news reported online has been collected by professional journalists and simply retweeted or rehashed by eager amateur newshounds.

Some claim that citizen journalists will replace the professional variety. I'm not a journalist, but I can't see that happening. Those who promote the supremacy of non-specialist amateurs often ignore the formal education and on-the-job training that goes into forming a professional reporter. Citizen journalists have only their wits and a relatively limited knowledge of professional ethics to fall back on.

That said, journalism does face a challenge, one which fake news has exacerbated, though not caused.

In 2016, the OECD published a study identifying foundational areas of modern life in which public trust has been most eroded.