A History of Fake Things on the Internet

A great read for skeptics looking to challenge their own confirmation bias, and equally for the credulous who might benefit from seeing behind the curtain. It's also a lesson in scale.

People have always sought to get one over on others - through scams, spam, deception, and manipulation. Historically, turning that intent into action required time, skill, resources, and know-how. Today, breakthroughs in computing and AI have dramatically lowered those barriers. The Venn diagram between knowledge and knobhead has started to overlap like a Big Mac.

The book explores how deception is an enduring part of human nature. We've always exaggerated, embellished, forged, and fabricated stories. What has changed is the reach. The internet - the greatest leap in communication ever created - has allowed tall tales once confined to local communities to become globally shared beliefs within hours.

It traces this evolution from hoaxes on early Bulletin Board Systems, through underground hacking communities that blurred the line between prank and crime, to the emergence of Photoshop and digitally manipulated media. Along the way, it examines how harmless hoaxes can inspire copycats with more destructive intentions, how misinformation spreads, what research tells us about defending against fake news, and, ultimately, humanity's remarkable ability to adapt to new technological environments.

More than a history of online deception, the book is really about the race between technology and human judgement. While our tools for creating convincing falsehoods have evolved at extraordinary speed, our cognitive biases remain largely unchanged. The challenge is not simply building better technology, but becoming better at recognising when we're being manipulated by it.