Useful lessons from media pranks: satire and humor as sources of fake news

Satire and humor have been a tool for criticizing power and social vices for centuries. But in the modern era of digital media and instantaneous dissemination of information, they have acquired a new, dangerous power — the power of a realistic fake. What happens when a prank, conceived as a joke, leaves the cozy audience of “the understanding” and ends up in the feed of those who are looking not for a reason to laugh, but for a guide to action?

Even jokes made without malicious intent in a tense social context can have serious consequences.

In April 2002, residents of Kansas City, USA, turned on the radio and heard that the local water contained high levels of dihydrogen monoxide, which causes sweating, urination, and skin irritation. The phones of the water department and the police were ringing off the hook with calls from outraged residents demanding an explanation. If the worried citizens had listened to the end of the program, they would have learned that dihydrogen monoxide is actually H2O, the chemical name for water. So the DJs of the local radio station decided to make a joke on April 1. But the joke was not appreciated. They were harshly criticized, and one official even accused them of terrorism.

Why did people believe the April Fool’s joke? It’s all about the psychological and communication mechanisms of our consciousness, as well as cognitive distortions:

– The pseudo-profundity effect — banal statements clothed in complex scientific or philosophical terminology, like deep and true ones, tend to evoke more trust: the brain automatically associates the complexity of the term with the complexity of the phenomenon, and therefore with its importance and danger. Simple “water” would not have caused any reaction. And the incomprehensible chemical name “dihydrogen monoxide” made listeners feel uninformed and vulnerable to an unknown threat.

– Authority of the source and medium: we tend to trust information coming from an authoritative source or channel. The “news” was broadcast on the radio, which many perceive as an official, trusted broadcasting channel, and was not written by an anonymous person in an obscure blog, and the serious voice of the announcer added is subconsciously perceived by many as authority: people expect verified information from the media, especially when it comes to “emergency releases”.

– Availability heuristic: people judge the probability of an event by how easily they can think of examples of similar events that have happened before. Stories about real environmental disasters and pollution are firmly entrenched in the public consciousness: pesticides in water, emissions from chemical plants. The “news about a chemical in the water” immediately activated these fears and seemed plausible because something similar had happened before.

“Dangerous dihydrogen monoxide”— this is a classic example of how — this is a classic example of how manipulation works not through lies, but through “a skillful mixture of truth and fiction,” playing on human cognitive errors. However, the joke stopped being funny when it came into contact with the system and society.

In 2020, at the height of the coronavirus pandemic, governments of many countries, such as the German Ministry of Health, called for people to refrain from pranks on the topic of the infection on April Fools’ Day. The Thailand authorities went further and announced a prison term of up to 5 years for disinformation, even in a humorous form. In Taiwan, the fine is up to 99 thousand dollars. The authorities in each country explained this by the fact that a joke, prank or joke can lead to unpredictable consequences.

From the desire not to obey the announced anti-infection regulations, which can affect the health of others, to panic and mass psychosis, which in a crisis situation can cost lives. This precedent became a signal that in the modern information world, states are beginning to perceive disinformation, even when presented as a joke, as a direct threat to national security.

What was supposed to be a reason to laugh is today increasingly becoming fake news, which, when retold from person to person, lose important details and become overgrown with speculation, as a result of which they begin to be perceived not as a joke, but as the truth.

One of the most striking examples in the history of media hoaxes was Orson Welles’
radio production of “The War of the Worlds” based on the science fiction book by
Herbert Wells. According to the plot, aliens came to Earth to enslave everyone. But the radio play on October 30, 1938, was presented as a live report from the scene. Of the 6 million listeners, about a million believed in the reality of what was coming from the speakers: mass panic arose, some barricaded themselves with weapons in their basements and waited for the aliens, some abandoned their homes and decided to get out of the city. Traffic jams from New York and Philadelphia stretched for almost 100 kilometers. Telephone lines were overloaded five times. The ironic presentation of science fiction in the format of a report from the scene of events erased the line between fiction and reality: the “joke” gave birth to a real media virus with real social consequences.

Nowadays, this would be called a prank (from English practical joke), which translates as a joke or an act. Most often, these “tricks” are performed in video or audio format. Some people arrange such jokes as a one-time action, and some specialize in this. The special genre of “satirical journalism” has existed for centuries. Such publications publish fictitious news under the guise of real news. One of the most famous foreign publications, “The Onion”, has repeatedly caused confusion with its provocative satire. In 2000, the portal published an article about how the Harry Potter books were causing a rise in Satanism among children. The humorous material sparked heated debates among representatives of religious communities, many of whom did not accept the satire, but began to use the article as evidence of a danger they had long foreseen.

The Harry Potter “onion” article has become a classic example of the power of the media to manipulate mass consciousness. How and why do such stories become fakes? They are taken out of context, stripped of recognizable satirical markers, and reprinted as real news by target groups (e.g. religious activists). Thus, although the goal of satirical publications is to ridicule prejudices and teach readers to critically perceive new information, the result is often to reinforce them.

5. Search: What do the search results for the news keywords show? Perhaps the authors of the satirical material themselves or fact-checking communities have already published a refutation.

Irony and humor are vital to a healthy society, but in the digital age, satire inevitably breaks out of the circle of “initiates” and begins to live its own life, often turning from a joke into a dangerous media virus. The best defense against such fakes is developed immunity based on contextual awareness and healthy skepticism towards any new information. Ultimately, the work of a fact-checker is not only refutation, but also education. Their mission is not to destroy humor, but to teach the audience to ask a simple but important question: “Is this a joke?” before clicking the “share” button.