News Literacy: Fabrication
Fabrication
Content that is entirely made up and designed to deceive you into thinking it's real. When it is intentionally false, it is disinformation.
According to this article from the Washington Post, John Adams, William Livingston (Gov of NJ), & others wrote false articles for the paper accusing the monarchy of crimes against America. While he was the American ambassador to France, Benjamin Franklin concocted an entirely fake American Newspaper called “The Boston Independent Chronicle” in 1782 that claimed that Native Americans were in league with King George and scalping children and townspeople. Some of the stories from this newspaper wound up being reprinted in real American newspapers.
More information can be found in the supplement to the Boston Independent Chronicle in the National Archives: https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Franklin/01-37-02-0132
Example
December 2016
The owner of Comet Ping Pong in Washington, D.C., James Alefantis, was a notable Democratic donor. He was mentioned in Hillary Clinton's campaign chairman, John Podesta’s, emails, which were hacked in March 2016 and released by WikiLeaks in November of 2016. After this, the conspiracy theory site, 4Chan, began trolling Alefantis’ social media accounts. They claimed he was running a pedofile ring out of the basement of Comet Ping Pong and they cited photos of children and basement construction as evidence of wrongdoing.
#Pizzagate started trending on other social media sites and building momentum. Alefantis & staff started receiving death threats. Protestors started to gather outside the restaurant.
On December 4, 2016, Edgar Welch walked into Comet and fired shots from an AR-15 style rifle, claiming to be trying to rescue the children. Luckily, no one was hurt. He was arrested & charged with Assault with a Dangerous Weapon.