This chilling ad compares fake news to fake medicine, fake baby formula, fake aircraft parts and more

Reporters Sans Frontières marks World Press Freedom Day.

Published On
May 03, 2018

Editor's Pick

To mark World Press Freedom Day, Reporters Sans Frontières (Reporters Without Borders) calls attention to the dangers of fake news, but does so in a chillingly indirect way. First it runs through a montage of images and stats that illustrate the dangers of other counterfeit products, including fake cooking oil (which lead to 10,000 cases of paralysis in 1959), fake aircraft parts (which lead to 50 passenger deaths in 1989) and fake medicine (which causes as many as 700,000 deaths per year by one estimate).

Ominous music underscores the visuals, which speed up and overwhelm us with the specter of more fakeness--fake toys! fake computers! fake baby formula!--before "FAKE NEWS" appears on screen along with its "ONE VICTIM": "DEMOCRACY."

Reporters Sans Frontières asks viewers to help "fight fake news" by supporting its defense of press freedoms around the world. (Find out more about RSF here.)