Fake News & Evaluating Internet Information: Fake News Home

“Fake news” has been around for a long, long time.  It is also one facet of “library instruction” that we have been fighting for years—that most people don’t take the time to read or comprehend something.  They read what they want to read and move on to the next thing.  Very few people stop and actually think, which has been made much worse by the Internet and social media.  “Information” is coming at us too quickly.  This topic is also a facet of evaluating Internet information--it's not just news, but anything you find online.

A November 22nd 2022 piece in Brian Dunning's Skeptoid was How to Spot Fake News.  Is much of his advice common sense?  Yes.  So why do people still want to believe that stuff?  By now, I think, people have just stopped thinking about anything.  A year later, November 2023, Skeptoid did a piece called How to Spot Misinformation.  It is just as apt.

Disinformation Stops with You is an 6 page infographic from the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency.  Can you see a trend here?  Stop and really think, maybe?

An ongoing topic of fake news is the misinformation and disinformation generated by Russia (or frankly anyone) regarding their invasion of Ukraine.  A number of resources are pointing out this misinformation and how to spot it: 

• Stanford University has a webpage explaining how to spot it
• Haaertz has a page on this topic as well
• PBS and The Conversation have pages on spotting fake or misleading footage on social media and 5 Ways to Spot Viral Fake Footage.
• Two additional resources are the Ukrainian StopFake.org and VoxUkraine; an additional fact-checking resource is ukrainefact.org.
• Realtime updates on the conflict (as well as additional fact-checking resources) can be found on this Russia-Ukraine Monitor Map.

Foreign disinformation: defining and detecting threats: Q&A report to congressional requesters, a September 2024 report by the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO), points out three particular foreign countries and the ways they spread misinformation and the ways our own government agencies combat this.  Disinformation doesn't just come from foreign countries, though.

Russia is adept at propaganda (2016 RAND Corporation study).  The patient skepticism the above resources advise should be applied to everything you might find online (and especially something provoking an emotional response), and underline the need to take a minute to carefully check your sources.  Ryan Broderick has created the Reverse Idiot Funnel (here is an image of it).  His explanation of Internet disinformation is not limited to just the biolab theory.  In fact, it basically explains how things are today.

When you hear the phrase "fake news", what comes to mind?  What do you think it is?  Who uses the term?  Why do you think they use it?  Is it less "fake" and more a story they would prefer you not to believe or follow?  Or a story that is deliberately misleading? One definition of fake news is "news articles that are intentionally and verifiably false, and could mislead readers" (Hunt Allcott and Matthew Gentzkow, 2016).

First Draft News has a great read "Fake News: It's Complicated" with an accompanying chart of 7 different types of mis- and disinformation.  

From the BBC, January 2018, is a short article The (almost) complete history of 'fake news' (do you remember the stories they write about?  Did you believe them when you first heard of them?).

The American Psychological Association has a sub-section under their Journalism and Facts page dealing with Misinformation and Disinformation.  

And what about deepfakes, altered/manipulated video?  That is also becoming (more) common.   And what is AI going to generate?

And what about fake "news outlets" posing as some kind of real news source?  The Lansing State Journal (which is legitimate) has a story about news outlets appearing to be local but are not.  A relatively recent (July 13th 2020) story from NiemenLab goes into national detail, and in August 2020 here is another story from clickondetroit.  (Sensing a pattern?  Here is a story from October 1st, 2020).  They are full of political propoganda.  There is a repository on GitHub keeping track of these fake websites.  Ask yourself and others who sent you something, always, "where did you see that"?  You could also ask "Did you actually read the article or just the headline?", or, "What, exactly, was the source?"

Speaking of pink slime, Sad Milestone: Fake Local News Sites Now Outnumber Real Local Newspaper Sites in U.S. (June 11 2024 piece from NewsGuard).

And what about something sent to you via social media that somehow sparks your ire or interest?  Do you bother to check anything about it?  Does anyone?  "A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is still putting on its shoes”--long attributed to Mark Twain but actually dates back to Jonathan Swift in 1710!

Mike Caulfield has 4 moves to work through (SIFT) when finding or being presented with a news source: 

1. Stop.  Ask yourself whether you know the website or source of the information, and what the reputation of both the claim and the website is.
2. Investigate the source.  Go upstream to the original source.  This might require one or two or more links away from your "original source".  
3. Find better coverage.  Sometimes you don’t care about the particular article or video that reaches you. You care about the claim the article is making. You want to know if it is true or false.  Is this source biased (visit some of the links below) or making a dubious claim?  See the next point, #4.
4. Trace claims, quotes, and media back to the original context.  Perhaps the reporting left something out?  Cherry picked select quotes?  
5. And I would like to add my own suggestion to this list: for heaven's sake have the patience (and care) to actually check this stuff.  Don't skim.  

Media and Fact Checking Resources

AllSides. Since 2012.  Focusing only on American news sources.  Rates news sources as Left, Center, and Right.  It is amusing to read the different headlines of the same news story under these different news outlets.

Ground.news looks at not only US sources, but has an international perspective as well (Canada, Europe, UK, International).  

Media Bias/Fact Check. Since 2015. Dedicated to educating the public on media bias and deceptive news practices.  Rates sources as Left Bias, Left-Center Bias, Least Biased, Right-Center Bias, Right Bias, Pro-Science, Conspiracy-Pseudoscience, Questionable Sources, Satire, and re-evaluates sources.  They have a list of fact-checking websites that is being reproduced below verbatim (because it's a good list):

• PolitiFact– PolitiFact is a fact-checking website that rates the accuracy of claims by elected officials and others who speak up in American politics. PolitiFact is run by editors and reporters from the Tampa Bay Times, an independent newspaper in Florida.  PolitiFact is simply the best source for political fact checking.  Won the Pulitzer Prize.
• FactCheck– FactCheck.org is a project of the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania.  They are a nonpartisan, nonprofit “consumer advocate” for voters that aims to reduce the level of deception and confusion in U.S. politics. They monitor the factual accuracy of what is said by major U.S. political players in the form of TV ads, debates, speeches, interviews and news releases.  FactCheck is similar to Politifact in their coverage, and they provide excellent details.  The only drawback is they lack the simplicity of Politifact.
• Open Secrets– Open Secrets is nonpartisan, independent and nonprofit, run by the Center for Responsive Politics, which is the nation’s premier research group tracking money in U.S. politics and its effect on elections and public policy.  Open Secrets are by far the best source for discovering where candidates get their money, and how much.  They also track lobbying groups and whom they are funding.
• Snopes– Snopes has been the definitive Internet reference source for urban legends, folklore, myths, rumors, and misinformation for a long time.  Snopes is also usually the first to report the facts.
• The Sunlight Foundation– NO LONGER ACTIVE.  The Sunlight Foundation is a national, nonpartisan, nonprofit organization that uses the tools of civic tech, open data, policy analysis and journalism to make our government and politics more accountable and transparent to all.  Sunlight primarily focuses on money’s role in politics.
• Poynter Institute– The Poynter Institute is not a true fact checking service.  They are however a leader in distinguished journalism and produce nothing but credible and evidence based content.  If Poynter reports it, you can count on it being true.
• FlackCheck– Headquartered at the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania, FlackCheck.org is the political literacy companion site to the award-winning FactCheck.org. The site provides resources designed to help viewers recognize flaws in arguments in general and political ads in particular.
• Truth or Fiction– Very similar to Snopes.  They tend to focus more on political rumors and hoaxes.
• Hoax Slayer– Another service that debunks or validates internet rumors and hoaxes.
• Fact Checker by the Washington Post– The Washington Post has a very clear left-center bias and this is reflected in their fact checks.  Their fact checks are excellent and sourced; however their bias is reflected in the fact that they fact check right wing claims more than left.  Otherwise the Washington Post is a good resource.

checkyourfact.com is an additional resource to go to if you have a feeling something "ain't right".  

Here is a PDF worksheet, "How to Identify Fake News in 10 Steps".  Other than for a class assignment (something you are forced to do), do you ever look this critically at a news story?

The Truth Decay webpage, from the Rand Corporation (which they define "as the diminishing role of facts and analysis in American public life. This phenomenon has taken hold over the last two decades, eroding civil discourse, causing political paralysis, and leading to general uncertainty around what's true and what isn't.")  Social media seems made for that.  Among their resources is a good list of anti-disinformation tools.

During conversations, when your friends drop some news story in your lap  that you think, to put it kindly, “doesn’t sound right”, call them on it: ask them to source the story, as suggested earlier.  "Where did you read that?  Show me."  This could lead to a spirited conversation on the merits of where information comes from.  Or not.  They might stop talking or forwarding anything to you.  They might get angry or very defensive that you caught them in forwarding dubious "information".  See the piece above from Caulfield.

In 1995, the late Carl Sagan wrote a book, The Demon Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark.  One of the chapters is The Fine Art of Baloney Detection (summarized here; the chapter itself is here).  The book and these links are well worth reading, but from that chapter comes a "baloney detection kit"--tools for skeptical thinking.

Related to that is a webpage the Seven Warning Signs of Bogus Science.  It's from way back in 2010.  Again, do people really stop and think and take the time to question what they have just seen?  Or do they just keep swiping on and on and on and on, reading one sentence meant to convey something.

The bottom line?  Think.  Be skeptical of something that sounds off and have patience in getting to the bottom of it.  Check something that sounds fishy.  Be that person that raises a question--it'll probably prevent people from talking to you anymore....  You need "a shock-proof, built-in BS detector" for information, to steal a quote widely attributed to Ernest Hemingway.  Maybe put your phone down for a while.

Something missing on this page?  Drop me a line at bsarjean@nmu.edu.