Title: Fake news: What exactly is it – and how can you spot it?
Headings: Fake news: What exactly is it – and how can you spot it?
Fake news: What exactly is it – and how can you spot it?
The origins of fake news
How did the internet and social media change things?
Impact of Russia, the 2016 US election and Trump
So, what exactly is fake news?
Has it had an influence?
What is being done about it?
How do you spot it?

Content: Warnings on potential fake news stories have been introduced by Facebook, but this does little to combat content that exists on the site itself. Has it had an influence? It is hard to tell. Facebook's chief executive Mark Zuckerberg initially said the idea that misinformation on Facebook influenced the election was a "crazy idea", but has backtracked, saying he regrets the comments. The sheer scale of Facebook and Twitter - 2bn and 330m users respectively - and the hours spent on them each week suggest many eyeballs have come into contact with fake news stories or misinformation campaigns. According to a study from Stanford University, fake news websites received 159 million visits during the month of the 2016 US election, and other research has shown the most widely-shared news stories during the election were fake. The majority were also pro-Trump. There is less evidence of fake news taking off in the UK during the Brexit vote or this year's general election, although there is evidence that bots have been used in both. However, there is a difference between reach and influence. The latter is a very difficult thing to measure, and this has been true of media for years - how much does the media drive beliefs, and how much does it reflect beliefs?