Here are some #protips for spotting fake news. There’s a lot of talk about fake news lately, especially spreading on Facebook. We recently debunked a fake viral map that was circulating on Facebook, but that was just one piece of misinformation out of much, much more out in the ether. This week, we compiled a Fact Checker guide for debunking fake news. When it comes to unfamiliar websites on the Internet, it’s best to mistrust and verify. It can be as easy as a Google search, which can tell you if the news you’re reading is fake. Snopes.com, a website dedicated to debunking online rumors, has a Field Guide to Fake News Sites that allows you to check whether the article is from a fraudster. RealorSatire.com also allows you to post the URL of any article and it will quickly tell you if the article comes from a fake or biased news website. Enjoy this newsletter? Forward it to someone else who'd like it! If this e-mail was forwarded to you, sign up here for the weekly newsletter. Hear something fact-checkable? Send it here, we’ll check it out. First step: Actually read the article before you share! Then look for these elements: - The URL. There's ABC News, the television network, at abcnews.go.com. And there's ABC News, the fake news website, at abcnews.com.co. The “.co” at the end is a strong clue it’s a fake news website. (It signifies the Internet country code domain assigned to the country of Colombia.)
- The Contact Us page. Some fake news sites don't have any contact information, which easily demonstrates it's phony. The fake "ABC News" does have a "contact us" page — but it shows a picture of the controversial Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, Kan. (An inside joke?) The real television network is based in New York City, housed in a 13-story building on 66th Street.
- The byline and bio. One article on the fake ABC News site is by Jimmy Rustling, who has quite an absurd author biography. Rustling is claimed to have won 14 Peabody awards, a “handful of Pulitzer Prizes,” has a Russian mail order bride of almost two months and "also spends 12-15 hours each day teaching their adopted 8-year-old Syrian refugee daughter how to read and write."
- The quotes. Many fake articles have made-up quotes that do not pass the laugh test. For example, an article by “Jimmy Rustling” actually quotes the founder of Snopes.com saying he approves of the article. It's like a weird inside joke, and in the readers' minds it should raise immediate red flags.
- The sources. Sometimes fake articles are based on merely a tweet, or some other sketchy, unverifiable “source.” Few real news stories are based on a single tweet, with no additional confirmation, so beware.
- The ads. Are there a lot of ads? Are a lot of them fishy, scammy or sexy? You generally don’t find ads like "Celebs who did Porn Movies" or "Naughty Walmart Shoppers Who have no Shame at All" on legitimate news sites, but they’re often on fake sites.
 (giphy.com) |
Twitter
Facebook
No comments:
Post a Comment