The subtle dishonesties you speak of have existed as long as rhetoric. The true fake news is new, and a product of the internet. Solving the first one is, in m

The subtle dishonesties you speak of have existed as long as rhetoric. The true fake news is new, and a product of the internet. Solving the first one is, in my opinion, pretty much impossible on a large scale—it requires critical reading, original research and a great deal of trust in fact sourcing. Solving the second one is Google's goal here, and it's an important one. The Comet Pizza incident [1] was emblematic of how blatantly fake news can affect real people. Moreover fake news is engaging: it legitimately competes with real news [2]. So yeah, I think the sub-problem is large and efforts to solve it are a big deal. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comet_Ping_Pong#Pizzagate_conspiracy_theory_and_2016_shooting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comet_Ping_Pong#Pizzagate_cons... [2]: http://www.vox.com/new-money/2016/11/16/13659840/facebook-fake-news-chart http://www.vox.com/new-money/2016/11/16/13659840/facebook-fa...