What The Fake?

I recently saw an interview with Warren Buffett. The billionaire commented on economic developments. Exciting. I shared the video. A friend who knows his way around the financial world replied: "That's fake. Buffett doesn't give such detailed interviews." He was right. Wow! This episode reveals a contemporary problem: fake news, which is not new. But the perfection with which it is produced today is new. Deepfakes, AI-generated content – the line between truth and fiction is blurring. Everyone needs to deal with it. Especially in business.

Fake News Spreads Quickly

An MIT study* shows that fake news spreads six times faster than verified information. Not because it is more credible – it's the opposite: it has a greater emotional impact. So we tend to believe it. These days, the credibility of information depends less on its source than on whether it fits our world view or our beliefs. And this is precisely what people in positions of power systematically abuse: They use these cognitive patterns to set their narratives – whether in organisations, politics or markets. Those who are unaware of their own filters become easy prey.

How to Check the Credibility of News

I think it's a good idea to reconsider whether an information is true or false. These questions may help:

Who says it – and why? Is it based on expertise or economic interest?

Is it also true in other contexts? A fact can be correct and still be misinterpreted.

How emotional is the message? The more emotional it is, the more it's worth pausing to reconsider.

This seems banal – but at the same time, it is existential. Those who make decisions without questioning the quality of information are making emotion-based decisions. And that can be dangerous.

What Does This Mean for Business?

In executive search, we operate in data-driven worlds. But data is never neutral – it reflects what has been collected, filtered and weighted. In pharma and medtech, we know that data can prove or blind. A CV can look impressive and still be manipulated. A market trend can be real and still be misinterpreted. A good researcher must recognise motives, tolerate contradictions and understand how truth is constructed in different cultures and companies. This is not optional – it is the basis of good judgement.

The Bottom Line

Fake news is not a media problem – it is a reflection of our own perception. The trick is not to expose all lies. The trick is to know your own filters and use them consciously.

In our daily business life, judgement has become a key skill: between data and interpretation, between knowledge and wisdom. Between what we want to see and what actually is. As the historian Yuval Noah Harari says: "In a world dominated by data, the most important skill remains the ability to distinguish between truth and illusion."

Have you fallen for perfectly made fake news too? How did you notice?

Vosoughi, S., Roy, D., & Aral, S. (2018). "The Spread of True and False News Online." Science, 359(6380), 1146-1151. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aap9559; The study examined all verified true and false news stories on Twitter from 2006 to 2017 – approximately 126,000 stories that were shared by around 3 million people across 4.5 million tweets. The finding: False news is roughly 70% more likely to be retweeted than true news.