Fake�News

What is Fake News?

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Articles, images, or videos which are posted on line in order to mislead or deceive people.

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What’ s the reason for fake news?

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Misinformation

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Caused by human errors

Not intended to deceive

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What’ s the reason for fake news?

The internet is an endless source of information that allows anyone to create and share content even if they do not have knowledge of the subject matter to which it refers.

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What’ s the reason for fake news?

According to research, 6 out of 10 Internet users republish something by reading only the headline! (and not the content)

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What’ s the reason for fake news?

Disinformation

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Created and shared on purpose by somebody who knows it’ s fake

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What’ s the reason for fake news?

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• Commercial such as promoting a product or generating traffic to a website (click bait)

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• Politician making propaganda, misleading people

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In all these…

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CULTIVATING CRITICAL THINKING IS THE SOLUTION!

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4 Key Questions

Who published it? Is he an expert on this subject?

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Where was it posted? Is the source reliable?

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When was last published or updated?

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Why was it published? To inform us, convince us of an opinion or promote a product?

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THINK…

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BEFORE YOU SHARE!

Fake news characteristics

EXAGGERATED HEADLINES

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TITLES NOT RELATED TO THE TEXT

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"Heavy" titles that often contain words (shock, terrible, awesome, incredible, etc.) or titles that contain many exclamation points should suspect you that they aim to pique your curiosity and increase the traffic of the site hosting the article (Click bait)

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Fake news characteristics

UNSIGNED ARTICLE/POST

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If the article you are reading contains serious claims but does not bear the author's signature, then it is very likely to be untrue.

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Fake news characteristics

SPELLING – SYNTAX ERRORS

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… if there are many spelling or syntax mistakes in the text then maybe that text is machine translated.

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Fake news characteristics

NO DATE ON

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… instead of specific dates the author uses vague words like yesterday, the day before yesterday, etc.

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Fake news characteristics

INCREDIBLE CONTENT

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• describing exaggerated/spicy situations without evidence

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• conspiracies without sources/evidence

(antivaccines, flat earth, spraying planes,

U.F.O etc)

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Fake news characteristics

SIGNIFICANT MISTAKES

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e.g a country’ s capital is written wrong

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Fake news characteristics

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BEWARE OF PHOTOS

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• if they are irrelevant to the publication
• if they are visibly processed
• if their resolution is too low

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You can search for the photo on Google to find out where it came from

Signs of unreliable websites

REFERENCE TO INACTIVE LINKS

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… it’ s a clue that should make you suspicious, especially in case there is more than one such references.

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Fake news characteristics

URGE FOR REPOST

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… if the author of the article clearly urges you to reproduce it.

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Develop critical thinking and trust your instinct and logic.

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If something seems unlikely to you...

then... probably it is !

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Fake news characteristics

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Check URL

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Unknown domain names should make you cautious

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Use reliable url’s such as:

• .gov = government agency
• .edu = educational institution
• .org = non-profit organizations
• .com = commercial or business group

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Signs of unreliable websites

THE PURPOSE OF THE SITE

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Is it meant to inform, sell a product, or convince you of an idea?

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Check the “About us” field…

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Advantages and Disadvantages �of

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• Easy to use

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• Huge tank of results

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• Results appear in order based on PageRank

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• There is no reliability filtering

PageRank

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…it’s Google’s algorithm, which places the web pages that are the most popular at the top of the results search

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so…

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there is a high probability of display web pages that don't have assessed for the reliability of information they provide.

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