“Dark information”: investigation of these forgers of the info who manufacture fake news

Antoine Bayet is the editorial director of INA, the national audiovisual institute. He teaches at the School of Journalism of Sciences Po Paris and was digital editor-in-chief at Radio France or at the Lab of Europe 1.

In February 2022, he published with Robert Laffont editions, Journey to the land of dark informationthe result of several months of investigation to try to understand the motivations of people who pick up so much information that they start producing parallel content.

Antoine Bayet met a little more than fifteen of these actors who produce counter-information and a whole set of things that he called ” dark information », an expression whose meaning he explains at the microphone of The media workshop insisting on the malicious dimension of this content.

Those whom the author calls “news forgers” operate on Facebook groups, Telegram channels or on Odysee (a kind of unmoderated YouTube) where they design and broadcast their productions. The latter constitute, according to Antoine Bayet, up to a third of the content posted on social networks.

This often video content has an impact on real life, as shown by the anti-pass demonstrations in the summer of 2021 which brought together tens of thousands of people.

In the disinfosphere, themes can evolve. Thus, anti-sanitary pass chains have become pro-Russian since the start of the war in Ukraine. All this also has an impact on the current French presidential election.

In front of the dark informationAntoine Bayet sees several possible complementary solutions which he details: a questioning of journalists on their role and their approach, better regulation of GAFAM and other digital platforms and development of EMI, media education and ‘information.

Mondoblog audio focuses on presidential campaigns and more specifically on the communication strategies used by candidates to convince voters. It is signed by the Malagasy blogger Ianjatiana Randrianandrasana.