Fake news has always existed. The only difference between today and hundreds of years ago is who had the most reach. Back in the past only the church and royalty had the power to spread (fake) news. Nowadays anyone can go on social media and do the same.
> Back in the past only the church and royalty had the power to spread (fake) news.
How so? Do you have an example in mind?
I can think of a lot of fake news or misleading propaganda deliberately disseminated by seditious and revolutionary groups during the French and American revolutions.
You'd probably want to read a treatment of the history of infrmation. Elizabeth Eisenstein's The Printing Press as an Agent of Change is a good (if long) start.
But church, or rather, Church, as power centre is very well established. The Roman Catholic Church thrugh the 15th century controlled knowledge, literacy, education, much of banking, and much of politics.
Not that the lay population mattered for much, but weekly mass was among the few channels by which common messages could be disseminated. Markets, town criers, and private messengers (royalty, nobles, commerce, finance) existed as well. Information might take months to cross Europe (especislly in winter), and longer from abroad. There was virtually no travel from November through May.
Literacy rates were on. the order of 5-10% through the start of the 17th-18th century (varying by region). It was both the explosion in printing capabilities (iron, steam, rotary, electric, web presses, from ~100 impressions/hr to 1 million+) and literacy (to 90-95%+) which accounted for much of the political turmoil of the 19th century -- moreso if you consder "the Long 19th Century" of 1789 - 1914.
You're stretching the definition of fake news to encompass instances that would otherwise not fit. Parent also states that only the church and the royalty had such power. If we are going to extend the definition of fake news to include defamation and false accusations, then the church hardly had a monopoly on the matter since they often responded to such allegations when spread by the commoners.
The overwhelming majority of such cases started as tips or accusations of indulging in superstition (at best) or poisoning and murder (at worst). If false, they would in fact be a prime example of fake news spread by the lower class. The case against Galileo or other re-interpretations of the Bible are outliers if you read actual trial and testimonies.
Therefore I re-iterate my question: what concrete example(s) support OP's assertion regarding this exclusive power of fake news dissemination?
I suppose if you're really want to be pedantic this wasn't completely limited to the church and monarchs. If enough people in a village wanted to suppress some information, or promulgate some falsehood, they could intimidate others into compliance. Plenty of Italian city-states had power structures more centered around wealthy merchants rather than nobility. So sure, it wasn't entirely limited to the church and nobility. But the church and nobility were undoubtedly in the most effective positions to carry out such deception.
The key observation is that when communication technology is primitive, then the ability to spread information is limited to a handful of people. Namely, those that either have the social position to spread their interpretation of the world and what is happening in it, or those that have the power to intimidate and force people into silence or compliance. Throughout much of history, this was religion (easy to spread information when people go to one of your institutions every Sunday, and your priests make up a huge portion of literate society) and the nobility (you control the armed forces and have more or less unilateral control over employment them).
And on a side note, I don't see why false accusations of crime or violation of social norms don't count as fake news. Such accusations are probably some of the most common instances of fake news.
It's not being pedantic to point out that OP's assertion was false. Especially given the context of the thread.
>The key observation (...)
That was not his/her key observation though. I'm happy to argue with this one (anti-monarchist and anti-clerical libeling and propaganda has been a well-established business for centuries), but I was hoping someone could provide concrete examples regarding the original point instead of alluding to ill-defined historical events in the hope that the hazy understanding and possible bias of the reader would fill up the void. Very fake news-esque way of making a point by today's standard ;)
>And on a side note, I don't see why false accusations of crime or violation of social norms don't count as fake news. Such accusations are probably some of the most common instances of fake news.
Sharing overlap while having disjoint components does not make two definitions equal. Especially for an anachronistic term that's awkwardly trying to be applied retroactively in the present discussion. There already exist well-defined terms for what you are referring to, why not call them that.
> That was not his/her key observation though. I'm happy to argue with this one (anti-monarchist and anti-clerical libeling and propaganda has been a well-established business for centuries), but I was hoping someone could provide concrete examples regarding the original point instead of alluding to ill-defined historical events in the hope that the hazy understanding and possible bias of the reader would fill up the void. Very fake news-esque way of making a point by today's standard ;)
This isn't "anti-monarchist" or "anti-clerical". This is just the way the world worked before civil rights and the importance of objectivity developed as a concept. The Romans claimed the Carthaginians sacrificed children to their gods. Archaeological evidence found that most sacrifices were animals, and the small minority of human remains were newborn children (likely stillborn children) and the claims of child sacrifice are believed to be a blood libel. Greek historians provided impossibly high figures for some battles (e.g. claiming that Darius invaded Greece with a million soldiers). Many of the histories of battles in the Punic wars are believed to be inflated. Not surprising given that our main source, Polybius, was a client of the Scipios who were renowned for victories against Carthage as these larger numbers aggrandize their fame. Roman writers also claimed that the Huns were a barely-human race that could hardly speak, and were essentially animalistic (Greek and Roman writers actually wrote this about most nomadic people). I suppose none of us really know how the Huns behaved, but I highly doubt they would have managed to conquer much of Europe if they really were as described. A Byzantine emperor claimed to have defeated an incursion along the Danube that had large numbers of women fighting as soldiers who he paraded back in the capital (highly suspected that he captured female noncombatants and made up the story of them fighting to make his victory more exotic; there is no credible evidence of women fighting in any organized capacity before the modern era). Snorri, one of our primary sources on viking-age Scandinavians, is widely believed to have exaggerated pagan Scandinavians' violence, as he was a christian write and wanted to paint a contrast between the savage pagan Scandinavians and comparatively civil ones after conversion. Do I really need to go on?
In premodern times, the ability to communicate information broadly and record information was highly exclusive. Those that had this exclusive power often used it for their own gain. This is something that every responsible historian is aware of, and views many claims with suspicion especially if there's a potential motivation for bias in the author. I am very surprised to see this claim being called "fake news-esque". This is something I thought every high-school graduate was aware of.
> Sharing overlap while having disjoint components does not make two definitions equal. Especially for an anachronistic term that's awkwardly trying to be applied retroactively in the present discussion. There already exist well-defined terms for what you are referring to, why not call them that.
True "fake news" is an awkward thing to apply to premodern times, since the idea of "news" is a highly modern concept. But it's perfectly clear that the people in this comment chain are using the term to refer to misinformation, particularly intentionally spread misinformation that benefits the one spreading it.
The church and royalty were almost always intertwined, power invested by god into the crown for divine legitimacy and thus has the power to decide what is right and wrong. The clergy also had the skills and resources to read and write, something we take for granted these days, thus control information spread at the communion.
The thing about fake news is that it's only fake when proven to be so.
This is all very fuzzy, I was asking for concrete examples of this fake news monopoly.
Here are good counter-examples: the incessant libeling against the royalty at the time of the French revolution [1], or the distortion and propaganda surrounding the Boston massacre to taint the British monarchy [2]. Not saying this was morally right or wrong, but it contrasts with the assertion of parent poster.
