“Fake news” – the actual spreading of false information, not the glib insult – got some real attention this week.

One technologist’s dark new take puts us all on course for an “infocalypse.” He sees a system already optimized to reward polarizing misinformation being greased by “a slew of slick, easy-to-use, and eventually seamless technological tools for … falsifying reality.” Dystopian terms have sprung up around this vision: “reality apathy,” “human puppets.”

Then there was an Arizona Senate candidate’s warm embrace of an endorsement by a legit-sounding publication that’s really just an anonymous blog.

More sensitive was the examination of the alarming school-shooting numbers widely shared after the Parkland, Fla., event. This insidious form of gun violence has affected a huge number of people. But, a Washington Post piece maintained, that number “needs no exaggeration.” Should a suicide in the parking lot of a long-shuttered school, for example, count as a school shooting?

Confronting questionable or misleading content, whatever its intent, presents a staggering challenge worldwide. But the importance of information scrutiny keeps dawning as the stakes rise.

This week the director of national intelligence told a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing that his department expects “Russia to continue using propaganda, social media ... and other means of influence to try to ... exacerbate social and political fissures in the United States.” Today – not to bury the lede, as journalists say – the FBI indicted 13 Russians on election-meddling charges.

Facebook, at the center of that storm in 2016, keeps saying that it’s taking steps to skew feeds toward “trusted sources.” Has a pivot to precision finally begun?

(Editor’s note: An earlier version of this intro misstated the political position of the blog endorsing the Arizona candidate.)

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