The concept of fake news is not new. It did not start spewing from a golden toilet in Manhattan, although the capacity of Donald Trump to lie almost every time he opens his mouth is quite staggering.
His election win in 2016 emboldened others all over the world to follow suit and relegate the truth to the margins. It has made the world far more dangerous and nastier, and should he win again in the coming weeks, it could be an extinction-like event for democracy.
The annus horribilis of 2016 was also the year of the Brexit vote. The campaign to leave the EU is remembered chiefly for its lies. The lie emblazoned over a big red bus suggesting that the NHS would get an extra £350 million a week is the one that stands out. Many more lies were told then and subsequently, including about Ireland and the border on the island.
The Leave campaign bus which falsely claimed the NHS could be £350 million a week better off if Britain left the EUThere are many similarities between the Brexit campaign and the controversy over the Boundary Commission in the 1920s, and how they were played out in the media.
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While the media landscape was far less sophisticated in the 1920s, the use of propaganda tools to spread misinformation and denigrate opponents was as potent then as it is now. The British media was deployed to diminish the nationalist case for the transfer of large parts of Northern Ireland to the Irish Free State, particularly in 1924 when the boundary question showed signs of engulfing British party politics in crisis over the Irish question yet again.
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