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Damian Collins MP says growth of fake news undermines confidence in the media in general. Photograph: Sean Smith for the Guardian

The phenomenon of fake news is to be investigated by a group of influential MPs following concerns that knowingly false articles posing as journalism could become a threat to democracy.

The inquiry, launched by the House of Commons culture, media and sport committee, will seek to determine an industry-standard definition of fake news, identify those susceptible to being misled and investigate how the BBC might have a bearing on its proliferation in the UK.

It will also examine whether search engines and social media companies, such as Google, Twitter and Facebook, need to take more of a responsibility in controlling fake news, and whether the selling and placing of advertising on websites has encouraged its growth.

Conservative MP Damian Collins, chair of the culture, media and sport committee, said: The growing phenomenon of fake news is a threat to democracy and undermines confidence in the media in general.

Just as major tech companies have accepted they have a social responsibility to combat piracy online and the illegal sharing of content, they also need to help address the spreading of fake news on social media platforms. Consumers should also be given new tools to help them assess the origin and likely veracity of news stories they read online.

The committee will be investigating these issues, as well as looking into the sources of fake news, what motivates people to spread it, and how it has been used around elections and other important political debates.

Fake news is widely considered to be the proliferation, through social media and the internet, of inaccurate and untruthful news stories, sometimes written by outlets posing as legitimate media organisations.

After the US presidential election, the phenomenon received widespread attention, with the Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton commenting that fake news had become an epidemic.

A study from economists at Stanford University and New York University dismissed the notion that fake news had swung the US election in favour of Donald Trump, but did say that fake news was both widely shared and tilted in favour of Trump.

According to the research, of the known false news stories that appeared in the three months before the election, those favouring Trump were shared a total of 30m times on Facebook, while those favouring Clinton were shared 8m times.

Analysis by Buzzfeed also showed there was a huge spike in engagement with fake news during the final three months of the campaign when compared with reports from outlets such as the New York Times, the Washington Post and CNN.

A conspiracy theory spread on fake news websites that Clinton and the Democratic party were operating a paedophile ring out of a pizza restaurant in Washington. This led to a gunman opening fire on the Comet Ping Pong establishment in early December; no one was hurt.

The interest in fake news has grown since the term entered the mainstream. Trump took to Twitter at the weekend to make his latest assault on the press, stating that the fake news and failing New York Times should be bought by someone who might run it correctly.

Trump, and many of his followers, have turned the phrase on its head and use it to condemn the mainstream media.

Last week, the Trump aide Steve Bannon, formerly chairman of the far-right Breitbart News website and now a counsel to the president, also called the mainstream media the opposition party to the current administration.

But fake news is not confined to America. In December in the UK, the England rugby star James Haskell was forced to deny news stories that emerged on social media that he had died of a steroid overdose. Haskell called the reports absolute rubbish.

In January, a Labour party inquiry was launched into the practice. Michael Dugher, the MP who is leading the inquiry, wrote in the Guardian that the Labour party, who have so often been on the wrong side of misrepresentation and unfair attacks from the rightwing media, have a responsibility to be vigilant and reject fake news material on social media and elsewhere even if it purports to come from the left.

The inquiry is due to report in the spring. It will look at the practical, political and ethical questions raised by fake news, as well as examining what more social media and news websites could be doing to make sure readers see a wider variety of views.

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MPs to investigate threat to democracy from 'fake news' - The Guardian

The trouble for democracy does not come from Beijing, or from globalisation, or from abroad, or, in Britain, from immigration or from Europe. It resides at home.

Barack Obama walking past China's President Xi Jinping at APECs opening session in Lima, Peru, Nov. 20, 2016. Pablo Martinez Monsivais/Press Association. All rights reserved.The Chinese regime has had a good 2016 because it was a bad year for democracy. Official Chinese media and various commentators have made fun of the Brexit referendum in Britain and the Trump victory in the United States as being what you get if you are careless enough to let the people decide. The Brexit referendum in Britain and the Trump victory in the United States what you get if you are careless enough to let the people decide.

The Chinese system is being held up as a model of stability. The leader, Xi Jinping, has exploited uncertainty and vacuum in 'the West' first at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation meeting in Peru in November 2016 and then at the World Economic Forum in Davos in January, to brazenly offer China up to the world as the guarantor of economic openness and free trade.

The awkward thing for the democracy side is that the Chinese dictators have been given a godsend of democratic weakness, so much so that western democracy is widely seen to be in crisis. Both the Brexit vote and Trumps victory were perverse. In Britain, there is a majority in the population and in Parliament in favour of continued membership in the European Union, but because of low voter participation among the young, that majority did not prevail in the referendum. In America, the losing candidate won the majority of the popular vote, but not in enough states to carry the election as constitutionally required.

In both countries, ugly campaigns embraced and encouraged sundry voices of xenophobia, fear of the other, racism and divisiveness which until the fateful year of 2016 we had thought marginalised to the dark and dusty corners of the house of modernity.

The turmoils of democracy in the West represent a shift in the balance of soft power in the world. Europe and America, in confusion and uncertainty, today look unimpressive. It is easy for Beijing to present the Chinese model as safe, stable and predictable. It is this shift in the power of esteem that Xi Jinping has been able to play on, successfully, in his travels to the West. In both countries, ugly campaigns embraced and encouraged sundry voices of xenophobia, fear of the other, racism and divisiveness.

But there is more to Beijings interpretation of the misfortunes of democracy. The Chinese leaders have perfected a model which has proved itself functional for the perpetuation of their own regime. It is for that purpose above all that they are determined to retain dictatorial control and not risk democratic reforms. However, there is also a view, both among regime insiders and some commentators, such as the political scientist Daniel A. Bell in his The China Model, that the Chinese political system is genuinely superior to any democratic system, both in delivering effective governance and also morally.

We cannot know if the Chinese leaders really believe that their model is superior, or if their claim to superiority is only window dressing for the maintenance of the dictatorship they depend on. But if there is a temptation on their part to believe their own propaganda, that temptation will now have been stimulated. In my own analysis of the Chinese system, in my book The Perfect Dictatorship, I see the Chinese regime as a dangerous one in the world, or at least potentially dangerous. Its propensity to aggression is most visible in the South China Sea. The Chinese state is powerful. What may make it dangerous is a conviction in the minds of the leaders in Beijing that they are the custodians of a unique virtue. That conviction they are themselves cultivating with the revival of ideology in the form of the nationalistic and chauvinistic rhetoric of the China Dream. It has now been given the additional stimulus that their model has suddenly come to look better compared to the alternative. When democracy performs poorly, it is logical that those who have advocated autocracy feel that history is proving them right. It is logical that the leaders of a powerful state, who believe to be seeing that history is on their side, will make their state a more assertive one vis--vis neighbours and others. If there is a temptation on their part to believe their own propaganda, that temptation will now have been stimulated.

There is a competition in the world between western democracy and Chinese-style autocracy. For the west to stand tall in that competition, democratic governments must see to it that their democratic systems perform, deliver and command respect. The way to do that is through constant reform. Democracies are imperfect. They are strong not by being perfect only dictatorships can be perfect but by imperfections being recognised and worked on.

Xi Jinping on the podium at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Jan. 17, 2017. Michel Euler/Press Association. All rights reserved.The systems the Chinese leaders and others are now able to make fun of, have neglected the imperative of constant reform. In America, the main problem is that the power of money has been allowed to prevail so that ordinary citizens rightly feel that the system is rigged in favour of the rich and that they themselves have no say. In Britain, the main problem is an excessively centralised system of political power with a wide gulf of distance between the rulers in London and the people throughout the land. In both countries, income and wealth has been redistributed to the rich and ultra-rich, leaving the middle class, not to mention the poor, behind in neglect and humiliation. In both countries, income and wealth has been redistributed to the rich and ultra-rich.

It is an uncomfortable truth, as we leave 2016, the year of reaction, that democracy is in trouble. But the trouble for democracy does not come from Beijing, or from globalisation, or from abroad, or, in Britain, from immigration or from Europe. It resides at home. The trouble for democracy, at this time in history, comes from our own poor ability to reform.

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China and the embarrassment of western democracy - Open Democracy

The only safe position for the opposition is to assume that every Trump gambit, no matter how seemingly spontaneous, fits a larger, nefarious purpose.

During Donald Trumps improbable and inflammatory rise to the presidency, a truism emerged to explain the polar reactions to him: The media takes Trump literally but not seriously, and his supporters take him seriously but not literally.

What this bon mot meant was that journalists made far too much of Trumps promises to build a wall, ban Muslims, erect trade barriers, destroy Obamacare and so forth, while Trumps electoral fan base never believed in all details but did see the candidate as a serious figure rather than the demagogic, incoherent clown of liberals scorn.

>> Trump excludes Muslim immigrants and expunges Jews from memory | Analysis <<

Barely one week into the Trump regime, we now know both sides were right, and American democracy is imperiled as a result. Yes, behind all the scattershot Tweets and egotistical sputtering, Trump has a consistent, long-held white-nationalist ideology. And, yes, he was telling the detailed truth about all of his bigoted and benighted policies.

It has taken only nine days of the Trump presidency to see that we are in the dawn of a dictatorship. One of his first executive orders pushed forward a $25-billion plan to build a wall along the Mexican border. Another slammed shut Americas golden door on refugees from the Syrian civil war and both immigrants and already-approved resident aliens from seven majority-Muslim countries. That measure also gave explicit preference to Christians, a religious test for admission that has never existed in American history.

Our nation knows by now that it was a fantasy to have expected the Republican Party to act as any kind of brake on the extremism of Trump and his personal Goebbels, Steve Bannon. Well before Trump even took office, all but a handful of Republican senators and representatives had proven themselves gutless wonders. The primary-election opponents he mocked and subjected to conspiracy theories Little Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz, son of that supposed participant in the JFK assassination endorsed their bullying tormentor.

>> Shame on you, Jared Kushner | Opinion <<

Now the Republican majority in Congress is palpably salivating at Trumps signature on the partys longstanding agenda of massive tax cuts for the wealthy and shredding of the social safety net for the poor and working-class. Trump will also give Republicans a Supreme Court nominee or two, which could reverse the Roe v. Wade ruling on abortion rights and the Obergell cases decision allowing same-sex marriage.

So it comes as no surprise whatsoever that House Speaker Paul Ryan and Senator Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Vice President Mike Pence could all so readily contradict their own previously stated positions against a ban on Muslim immigration once Trump issued a Steve Bannon-authored executive order doing essentially that.

The Republican Jewish Coalition, no doubt delirious over Trumps instant alliance with Benjamin Netanyahu in support of the settlement enterprise and confrontation with Iran, has gone similarly mute. When Sheldon Adelson has an aisle seat on the presidential platform for the inauguration, you know all you need to know.

And you would never guess that the same Reince Priebus now trying to finesse the offensive and instantly controversial Muslim ban is the same person who, in the wake of Mitt Romneys 2012 defeat to Barack Obama, authorized an internal Republican Party study on the need to reach out to nonwhite voters lest the GOP continue to lose presidential elections as America becomes an increasingly young, brown, black, yellow and urban nation.

With the expedient exceptions of a few Republican representatives in swing districts and the more principled example of senators John McCain and Lindsay Graham, mavericks who are even more liberated by likely being in their final terms, Republican office-holders have fallen into obedient line.

They live in greater fear of Trumps alt-right base, which is disproportionately powerful in low-turnout primary elections, than of destroying the American values of religious freedom and openness to immigrants. Those are not Democratic Party values, mind you, but American values; Ronald Reagan, nobodys idea of a left-winger, signed amnesty for undocumented immigrants and welcomed refugees.

So if one mistake for those of us in the resistance is to expect an iota of integrity from Republicans in Congress then a second is to believe that even the best investigative reporting will change the minds of Trumps hard core those 36 to 40 percent of Americans who approved of him in recent polls. Thanks to decades of efforts by right-wing Republicans to delegitimize reported, factual news as partisan bias, efforts that began with Richard Nixon and Spiro Agnew in the late 1960s, a substantial share of the citizenry cannot be persuaded by truth if it contravenes predisposition.

At best, some of Trumps voters will change their mind only after experiencing his unkept promises first hand when the revival of coal mines and auto plants doesnt happen, when trade wars kill jobs dependent on the import-export economy, when working-class whites lose their Obamacare coverage in favor of a wholly insufficient tax credit, if even that. Trumps base must suffer before it learns.

And the third mistake for moderates and liberals is to put faith in a vision of Trump as impetuous, inconsistent, and disorganized, a contraption ticking down to self-destruction. May it be so. But in the meantime, the only safe position for the opposition is to assume that every Trump gambit, now matter how seemingly spontaneous, fits a larger, nefarious purpose.

Those complete falsehoods about millions of illegal immigrants having voted for Hillary Clinton? Trumps announced investigation into nonexistent ballot fraud is the ideal way to keep Republican momentum for voter-suppression laws. Sending out his flacks Sean Spicer and Kellyanne Conway to repeat presidential lies to incredulous reporters? Those moments provide the perfect video clip for the Breitbart, Drudge, and Fox audiences, which see not Spicer and Conway but the mainstream media being humiliated in the encounters.

As has already become apparent with the Muslim ban, the future of the republic rests with the courts, or at least it does until the 2018 and 2020 elections. Judges in New York, Seattle, Boston, and northern Virginia all issued restraining orders against portions of the executive order.

Surely, the Trump regime will counter-sue, and its hardly unreasonable to expect a resulting case to reach the Supreme Court. However conservative half the high courts current judges are, they are also lifetime appointees, free to actually decide on the basis of conscience and the Constitution.

And should Trump lose at the Supreme Court, then every sensate American will be waiting in trepidation to see whether his reaction is capitulation or a coup.

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Dawn of the Dictatorship: Trump Wastes No Time Imperiling American Democracy - Haaretz

There is a new incumbent in the White House, a new Congress has been sworn in, and scientists around the country are nervous as hell.

Were nervous because there seems to be a seismic shift going on in Washington, D.C., and its relationship with facts, scientific reality and objective truth has never been more strained.

Already, in the opening days of his administration, Donald Trumps press secretary, Sean Spicer, willfully ignored clear, empirical evidence about the size of the inauguration crowds, and bristled at the suggestion experts said they were smaller than in years past. He seemed almost paranoid and insinuated that a media conspiracy rather than simple arithmetic was trying to embarrass his boss. And the Trump administration continues to claim, without any evidence, that widespread voter fraud cost Trump the popular vote, even though this has been thoroughly debunked by numerous, bipartisan sources including his own lawyers.

Even more bizarrely, Kellyanne Conway, a senior advisor to Trump, has offered up the notion that alternative facts, rather than actual truth, were in play now. I dont know what alternative facts are, but I think my parents generation would have called them falsehoods or even lies.

But its not just absence of facts thats troubling, it is the apparent effort to derail science and the pursuit of facts themselves.

Already, we have learned that multiple agencies, including the USDA and the EPA, have ordered their scientists to stop speaking to the public about their research. The CDC suddenly cancelled a long-planned, international conference on the health impacts of climate change. And when the Badlands National Park started using its Twitter account to discuss the issue of climate change as any nature center, park or science museum might do the tweets were immediately deleted. Most disturbingly, the EPA has immediately suspended all of their grants and contracts, and ordered the review of all scientific work by political appointees, including efforts to collect data, conduct research and share information with the broader public a public, we should remember, that paid for the work in the first place.

And its only been a week since Trump took office.

A disturbing pattern seems to be emerging. Facts, and the pursuit of facts, dont seem to matter to this White House. Or, worse yet, they matter a lot and are being suppressed.

Fact checking the Trump campaign was always a surreal exercise, but we all knew that he came from the world of entertainment, and that shoot-from-the-hip, I-say-what-I-think style was part of his charm, part of his brand. People fed up with regular politicians loved his brash style. It was refreshing to many.

But now that Trump is in power, this is no longer about ratings and entertaining television. Its about ensuring the fundamental legitimacy and credibility of the worlds most powerful office. If we cant trust the facts being discussed in the White House, what can we trust?

Ultimately, a healthy democracy depends on science. The pursuit of truth, having an informed citizenry, and the free and open exchange of ideas are all cornerstones of our democracy. Thats one thing that always made America truly great: The fact that, when all is said and done, evidence and the truth would always win the day in America. Without that, we join the league of ordinary nations.

And even if you arent worried about factual evidence, the veracity of our leaders or the independence of science from political interference, I would urge you to look a little farther down the slippery slope. If facts dont matter to the White House, especially when theyre inconvenient, whats next? Laws?

Let me be clear: This isnt a partisan thing. Scientists arent and shouldnt be worried about which political party is in power. It rarely mattered: There has always been a long tradition of bipartisan support for science and a fact-based world view. In fact, the Union of Concerned Scientists has ranked both Republican and Democratic presidents as being exceptional supporters of science, ranging from Abraham Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, Harry Truman, Richard Nixon, Jimmy Carter and George H.W. Bush.

Wise leaders of both parties have always recognized the value of independent science to our democracy.

But theres something different about this administration. Something troubling. And scientists need to stand up and call it out. While we generally avoid political conversations, scientists should always stand up for facts, objectivity and the independence of science itself. Not doing so would be almost unethical.

So, to Trump, I would say this:

If this is all just a series of missteps, caused by over-zealous mid-level managers during a confusing presidential transition, so be it. Say so. Fix it. Get out on the public stage and affirm your commitment to facts, to truth and to the independent pursuit of science without political interference. The vast majority of your fellow Americans would applaud you for this. It would be brave. It would be wise. And it would show some class.

But if this is actually part of your governing philosophy, I would give you a warning on behalf of my fellow scientists: Do not mess with us. Do not try to bury the truth. Do not interfere with the free and open pursuit of science. You do so at your peril.

Americans dont look kindly on bullies, people who try to suppress the truth or people who try to intimidate scientists and the press. In the long run, this always backfires. The dustbin of history is full of people who have tried, and failed. You will too.

The next time you visit the CIA headquarters, I hope you will take a moment to notice their unofficial motto, etched in the walls of the lobby. It says, And ye shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free. (John VIII-XXXII.)

It does. And scientists like me, and Americans of all backgrounds, will always fight for it.

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The war on facts is a war on democracy: Scientific community has a warning for President Trump - Salon

West Africa - from dictators' club to upholder of democracy BBC News Former Gambian leader Yahya Jammeh failed to appreciate that democracy had taken root in West Africa. It left him on a hiding to nothing once he lost elections, writes Elizabeth Ohene. If proof were needed that the political atmosphere had changed in ... and more »

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West Africa - from dictators' club to upholder of democracy - BBC News