Is it Fake or is it Truth?
The difference between Fake News and Faked Truth
The concept of “fake news” isn’t new. Since the rise of Donald Trump, it’s become part of our daily lexicon. The term fake news has simply been misused into meaning any truth I don’t like. Real fake truth is something else entirely. Fake Truth isn’t a lie you can see coming; it’s a story built on real bones—so carefully that you don’t notice when the marrow’s been replaced.
I’ve noticed an uptick in “documentaries” on YouTube that couch their content on an actual event, concept, or fact, and then gently turn away from truth into speculation—or a plain wrong direction—so expertly that the listener doesn’t even realize they’re being lied to.
For example, there was a serious earthquake in Bangkok, Thailand, on March 28, 2025. It measured 7.7 on the Richter Scale and did wholesale destruction to the city, in spite of the epicenter being in Sagaing, Myanmar.
In particular, one building—the State Audit Office of Thailand (SAO) tower—came down in eight seconds while still in an unfinished state. It was a 30-storey building in Bangkok’s Chatuchak district. The tower’s fall was captured from three angles, a dust cloud rolling down Sathorn Road like surf. Why is this relevant? Why is this important?
It boils down to the idea that modern buildings should be able to withstand seismic disturbances. Engineering should prevent a newly built structure from pancaking so easily, right?
Well, there was a serious investigation. The people surrounding the building’s construction were all found at fault for a variety of offences, from negligence to outright fraud. Basically, the building wasn’t constructed to the specifications the designers had stipulated—and everyone was to blame.
The unfortunate thing is, many workers lost their lives because it collapsed so quickly.
That’s all true. It’s well documented. So what isn’t true in this particular video? The “solutions” the narrator speaks of. The video goes on to say “Regulators wasted no time rewriting the rules that had failed to protect the skyline. Within months, the ministry of industry and the Thai Engineering Standards Committee mandated blockchain based tracking for every batch of steel and concrete used in public projects.”
That just didn’t happen. It would be nice if it had, but it didn’t. It was a carefully crafted piece of speculative fiction—fictionalized but extremely realistic dramatization.
So how does a viewer know? You don’t. Not unless you verify it with an AI or do the research yourself. It wasn’t until I mentioned it in passing—casually, confidently—that someone asked, “What tower?” That’s when I felt the floor shift. I’d been carrying a false memory.
Until that moment, I thought the whole video was true, and I would have gone on believing it.
Therein lies the destructive quality of this type of “journalism.” I use that word loosely, but these folks consider themselves journalists “investigating a story.” Here’s my problem: it’s not that the content isn’t good—in fact, the solution the narrator claimed was used was actually a very good one—and apparently it is being used in other construction. But it hasn’t happened in Thailand. He didn’t tell his listeners, “This is speculation on my part.” He didn’t own the lie. He presented it as fact.
There’s real danger when people purporting to be journalists don’t admit when they’re making things up—regardless of how “right” they believe they are. It only gives fodder to those who don’t want to believe the truth. It’s a gold-key permission slip to scream FAKE NEWS at every story that’s presented.
If you can’t admit the truth—or admit when you’re making shit up—then you’re not a journalist. You’re a writer, and you’re writing speculative fiction.
Speculative fiction is a genre. It’s interesting, and it’s readable. But people who buy speculative fiction know it’s fiction. They don’t believe it’s truth. People who watch YouTube “documentaries” don’t know that distinction.
It puts a serious question mark above all those creators whose content looks, sounds, and acts like documentaries—but are they really telling the whole truth?
Now I have to question everything. That’s not fun. I don’t like not trusting sources that seem reputable. I don’t like being suspicious of content that appears, at all costs, to be real.
As a species, we make decisions based on what we learn, see, hear, and know. We decide where to live, what to eat, who to trust, based on those things. If the people we’re learning from aren’t telling the truth, how do we, as a people, make the right decisions?
That’s it, isn’t it? As soon as the far-right politicos started yelling FAKE NEWS, they broke the trust of everyone and everything being learned. They broke trust in the media, in writing, in television. The one known belief—that what was in print was true—has long been put to bed. Even the premise of truth in advertising has fled reality.
And that’s the problem: there’s no more truth to hold on to.
Advertisements lie to us. They create negatives their products “correct.” Whether that negative actually exists isn’t the issue; it’s whether you believe it applies to you that matters.
Take a big player in this field—eye-cream products. When was the last time you saw a 25-year-old woman who looked 45? Yet that’s who they use to pretend their products work. They use very young women to promote products older women would want. The result? Sixteen-year-olds think they have wrinkles and look old because they’re told, indirectly, that they do.
Stupid. Just stupid. People have lost the ability to think critically and recognize truth because they’ve been lied to about everything—from their soup to their shoes.
We can thank advertising for starting this trend. When did they start lying to the public? When was “truth in advertising” ditched?
And that’s the sad part—it wasn’t ditched. During the 1960s and 1970s, there was a formal push to hold advertisers to their word. If they said a product did XYZ, it had to. That was eroded over time as regulations loosened and self-policing took over.
Ha—never let an industry regulate itself. That’s been the downfall of many. To name just a few:
Cosmetics industry: Self-regulated. Neither the FDA nor Health Canada have to approve ingredients. So they’ll say anything to sell anything. Proof: The U.S. only banned lead in lipstick in 2022—decades after contamination was proven.
Automotive industry: Claimed to self-regulate manufacturing emissions. Regulators “trusted” their data. Proof: Volkswagen’s Dieselgate (2015) led to 11 million vehicles recalled.
Social media: Promised to regulate disinformation, hate speech, and addictive algorithms. Proof: The Facebook Papers (2021) revealed engagement metrics overrode safety concerns. We live inside an algorithmic echo chamber.
Health supplements and “natural” products: In 1994, the U.S. FDA removed pre-approval and replaced it with self-reporting. In 2004, Health Canada tried to correct this, but failed. Proof: The market is flooded with placebo products claiming to “boost immunity” or “balance hormones” without measurable definitions.
Self-regulation only works when lying isn’t profitable—which means it almost never works. Self-regulation is a polite word for trust me. But when trust collides with profit, history shows who always wins. The fox writes the henhouse rules, audits them quarterly, and publishes glowing reviews in glossy magazines.
If it’s all “just entertainment,” then why lie?
Does it have to lie to be entertaining? Has the audience become so addicted to outrage that truth alone no longer holds attention?
Going back to that video of the Bangkok collapse—what did the narrator gain by twisting it? The real story already had everything: tragedy, negligence, corruption, and human cost. Yet he chose to lace it with fiction, to invent a fix that never happened.
Maybe the answer is painfully simple: truth doesn’t trend. A lie, framed as revelation, does.
The algorithm rewards novelty, not honesty. The viewer rewards certainty, not complexity. So creators learn—consciously or not—that a little fabrication buys engagement. And the line between storytelling and deception dissolves in the glow of a million clicks.
But if every truth is dressed as fiction and every fiction wears the mask of truth, what happens to the act of believing itself?
Maybe the only real truth left is the one we build ourselves—checked, cross-checked, and never fully trusted.