Everything Is Fake

<p>Recommended listening from Top Comment, the BBC podcast that investigates what's blowing up online.</p><p>In this clip from the latest episode Marianna Spring and Matt Shea look at the highly convincing fake BBC news articles that are being promoted on Truth social and other major sites. One example, which describes a fictional altercation on Question Time between Nigel Farage and the governor of the Bank of England, appears to be an elaborate attempt to promote a murky crypto operation.</p><

<p>Jamie and his AI companion Jimmy Botlett become increasingly difficult to tell apart as they bring you the final chapter of this story - featuring Geoffrey Hinton, the godfather of AI, who now wishes he'd thought harder about the consequences. Plus we hear claims that an engineer is building something rather frightening at one of the big AI companies. But what's true, what's fake, and what does any of it say about what's happening to all of us, right now?</p><p>Presenter: Jamie Bartlett Serie

<p>Jamie sits down with Dr Aseem Malhotra, the cardiologist who reaches millions through alternative media with his claims about Covid vaccines - and who is, he says, nervous about talking to the BBC. Jamie goes through his arguments carefully, with an open mind. But the harder question isn't whether Malhotra is right or wrong. It's what it means that so many people trust him more than they trust the institutions that are supposed to tell us the truth.</p><p>Presenter: Jamie Bartlett Series Prod

<p>In the early 2000s, a young man in New Jersey was writing thousands of fake university essays for paying students. Around the same time, financial analysts in New York were rating toxic debt as safe. And in Silicon Valley, a new business philosophy was taking hold: fake it till you make it.</p><p>Jamie Bartlett asks how so many people, in so many different worlds, arrived at the same conclusion at the same time. The answer, he thinks, has a name - The Lance Armstrong Defence. A quiet, creepin

<p>In 1987, the same year Hulk Hogan body-slammed Andre the Giant, something else happened that would change America's relationship with the truth forever - a Washington regulator abolished the law that required broadcasters to present both sides of an argument.</p><p>What followed was Morton Downey Jr, a furious chain-smoking provocateur who discovered that outrage was more compelling than accuracy. And Oprah Winfrey, who found that sincerity and emotional honesty could be just as powerful. Tog

<p>In episode two, Jamie ventures into the strange world of 1980s WWF wrestling - where performers and fans share an unspoken agreement to treat the whole spectacle as real. A shared illusion where everyone knows it's fake, but plays along because it feels true. It sounds like harmless fun. And for a while, it was. But Jamie soon wonders: what happens when an idea like that escapes the ring and changes the world?</p><p>Credits: Presenter: Jamie Bartlett Series Producer: Tom Pooley Sound Design:

<p>Jamie Bartlett is not Steven Bartlett. People mix them up more than you might think - but there is an important difference: Steven Bartlett is one of the most successful podcasters on the planet, and Jamie is not.</p><p>So what does Steven have that Jamie doesn't? And what does the answer tell us about the world we now live in?</p><p>In this first episode, Jamie digs into the origin stories of the UK's podcast kings - and discovers that in 2025, working out what's true, what's embellished, an

<p>Have you noticed that more and more of the world feels, well, fake?</p><p>Online there's a daily avalanche of dubious advice and information - about health, money, success, happiness - much of it delivered with total confidence and little regard for evidence.</p><p>There's the fabricated reviews, inflated metrics and synthetic content.</p><p>Influencers present themselves as authorities. The 'fake it till you make it' mantra has hardened into the business model. Everything is now content. Per