Fake news and the role of algorithms in today's world

PARIS – At the heart of the spread of fake news are the algorithms used by search engines, websites and social media, which are often accused of pushing false or manipulated information regardless of the consequences. They are the invisible but essential computer programs and formulas that increasingly run modern life, designed to repeatedly solve recurrent problems or to make decisions on their own. Their ability to filter and seek out links in gigantic databases means it would be impossible to run global markets without them, but they can also be refined down to produce personalized quotes on everything from mortgages to plane tickets. They also run our Google searches, our Facebook news feed, recommend articles or videos to us and sometimes censor questionable content because it may contain violence, pornography or racist language. Other algorithms charged with the most complex and sensitive tasks can be opaque "black boxes" that develop their own artificial intelligence based on our data.