This Isn’t Fake

The issue of fake news is a hot topic today. Why is this? A significant reason is we don’t get our news from traditional media sources like paper-based newspapers and magazines and traditional TV news outlets anymore. Over the decades, most of these sources were often regarded as objective, fact-based sources. The Internet is now our go-to place for information. As we know, anyone can create and publish a website these days, and any content can be authored; thus, stories and “news” can be easily published with varying levels of bias and inaccurate information. Most of us, especially younger generations, now get their news from their social media feeds. Is this necessarily bad? No. But because fake news sites and stories can be easily created, posted, and spread through social media, being able to detect “fake news” has become more challenging and it’s a skill we need to hone.

Teachers from different subject areas have taught information literacy and the evaluation of sources for many years. The growth of the Internet over the last 20 years to be our main medium for information has added complexities to these teaching processes. Sometimes hidden or not so easily found clues on websites need to be evaluated to determine the credibility and reliability of information on it (check out this resource that helps teach this). When news comes through social media, however, especially when viewed on a mobile device, that process becomes even more challenging since those clues become less obvious. What can we do to help determine whether something is fake or factual in the social media realm, especially before we share, retweet, or repost a news story?

The Breaking News Consumer’s Handbook created a nice infographic to help evaluate the fake vs. factual. Here it is:

Are there any technology tools we can use to help this cause? Yes! There is a Google Chrome extension called “This Is Fake” created by Slate that can be very useful. As it says in the Slate article, announcing the extension:

“The point isn’t just to flag fake news; you probably already know it when you see it. It [the Chrome extension] is to remind you that, anytime you see fake news in your feed, you have an opportunity to interrupt its viral transmission, both within your network and beyond.”

An additional tool that plugs into Chrome, Firefox, and Safari is the B.S. Detector. It has a similar function as tool above. As it says on the site:

“B.S. Detector searches all links on a given webpage for references to unreliable sources, checking against a manually compiled list of domains. It then provides visual warnings about the presence of questionable links or the browsing of questionable websites.”

By using these tools and using the critical thinking points in the infographic above, we can strengthen our technological and mental capabilities to better fight the fake news phenomenon.