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

This circular and insular thinking is made all the more dangerous if we're building our assumptions on false information derived from fake news.

And what of the effect of fake news on the machines themselves? The bots we use online represent a rudimentary form of machine learning, in which computers and networks thereof "learn" by mining huge amounts of information online. The next step is that computers will increasingly improve on their own programming as a result.

What happens, though, if the information our machines process is rife with errors, especially if those errors occur on sites that machines have been programmed to treat as reliable?

Moreover, what happens when someone hacks an avatar, or prevents its owner from controlling or intervening in its functions? Fake news may then become very personal indeed.

An invasion of your avatar account would leave you stranded on many levels. It might also destroy your ability to control your own personal narrative - and narrative is almost as important today as money. After all, one's online story affects one's ability to find a job or the right life partner.

Vote Rigging

Finally, it is almost inevitable that fake news will lead to the rigging of an entire election as distinct from simply influencing voters' thinking. Automation of election processes promises many benefits to governments, local, regional and national continue - not least in terms of cost and manpower.

At least one nation in the eastern bloc has discovered that by allowing remote digital voting it has diminished the electoral prospects of communist parties.

Being able to vote remotely has encouraged educated and world-experienced expats living in abroad, places such as the USA, to re-engage with domestic politics. These young professionals tend to vote for progressive rather than regressive parties.

Traditional paper-based voting systems will increasingly give way to Cloud-based varieties. The danger is that while an individual's political conscience can't easily be hacked, a computerised polling system can.

It is high time we all stepped up to the plate when it comes to tackling fake news. As responsible citizens we should educate ourselves about what is going on in the world.

We should refuse to frequent sites that promote obvious falsehoods on a consistent basis. If we're not sure about particular content, we should avoid passing it along via social media or word-of-mouth.

For their part, internet companies need to recognise that they are the new independent broadcasters and publishers of our time. They make large sums of money from this position. They must also accept the concomitant social responsibility. Insisting on rights without accepting responsibility is the formula for anarchy.

Though we already have laws to cover such things as hate speech and libel, internet platforms should adopt a shared code of ethics and self-imposed penalties for infringing that code.