> That was not his/her key observation though. I'm happy to argue with this one (anti-monarchist and anti-clerical libeling and propaganda has been a well-established business for centuries), but I was hoping someone could provide concrete examples regarding the original point instead of alluding to ill-defined historical events in the hope that the hazy understanding and possible bias of the reader would fill up the void. Very fake news-esque way of making a point by today's standard ;)

This isn't "anti-monarchist" or "anti-clerical". This is just the way the world worked before civil rights and the importance of objectivity developed as a concept. The Romans claimed the Carthaginians sacrificed children to their gods. Archaeological evidence found that most sacrifices were animals, and the small minority of human remains were newborn children (likely stillborn children) and the claims of child sacrifice are believed to be a blood libel. Greek historians provided impossibly high figures for some battles (e.g. claiming that Darius invaded Greece with a million soldiers). Many of the histories of battles in the Punic wars are believed to be inflated. Not surprising given that our main source, Polybius, was a client of the Scipios who were renowned for victories against Carthage as these larger numbers aggrandize their fame. Roman writers also claimed that the Huns were a barely-human race that could hardly speak, and were essentially animalistic (Greek and Roman writers actually wrote this about most nomadic people). I suppose none of us really know how the Huns behaved, but I highly doubt they would have managed to conquer much of Europe if they really were as described. A Byzantine emperor claimed to have defeated an incursion along the Danube that had large numbers of women fighting as soldiers who he paraded back in the capital (highly suspected that he captured female noncombatants and made up the story of them fighting to make his victory more exotic; there is no credible evidence of women fighting in any organized capacity before the modern era). Snorri, one of our primary sources on viking-age Scandinavians, is widely believed to have exaggerated pagan Scandinavians' violence, as he was a christian write and wanted to paint a contrast between the savage pagan Scandinavians and comparatively civil ones after conversion. Do I really need to go on?

In premodern times, the ability to communicate information broadly and record information was highly exclusive. Those that had this exclusive power often used it for their own gain. This is something that every responsible historian is aware of, and views many claims with suspicion especially if there's a potential motivation for bias in the author. I am very surprised to see this claim being called "fake news-esque". This is something I thought every high-school graduate was aware of.

> Sharing overlap while having disjoint components does not make two definitions equal. Especially for an anachronistic term that's awkwardly trying to be applied retroactively in the present discussion. There already exist well-defined terms for what you are referring to, why not call them that.

True "fake news" is an awkward thing to apply to premodern times, since the idea of "news" is a highly modern concept. But it's perfectly clear that the people in this comment chain are using the term to refer to misinformation, particularly intentionally spread misinformation that benefits the one spreading it.