The impact of fake news on your marketing department

Fake news is in the news. But what does it mean for marketing?

Samsung announced creepy new technology that would allow a somebody to create a lifelike video of a person from a single photograph, opening the door for widespread abuse (h/t Christopher S. Penn).

Meanwhile, Facebook refused to take down a doctored video of U.S. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, saying:

“But just because something is allowed to be on Facebook doesn’t mean it should get distribution. In other words, we allow people to post it as a form of expression, but we’re not going to show it at the top of News Feed.”

Facebook has become a fake news smoke machine. People don’t facts to form an opinion. All they need is smoke.

Misinformation strategy relies on the powerful human instinct of believing there cannot be smoke without a fire. If so many people are talking about it, there must be something to the rumors.

Alphabet-owned YouTube took the video down but Facebook’s policy seems to open the door for corruption and institutionalizing fake news as an accepted business practice.

While most of the attention has been placed on the impending impact on politics, the ability to easily and inexpensively produce false videos of individuals will impact companies, too. What do we do about it?

That’s the topic of the latest episode of The Marketing Companion. Brooke Sellas and I dissect this topic in-depth and present some actionable ideas to protect your own business. You won’t want to miss this important discussion:

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