While fake news is a serious problem, it’s not new. Social media and bots just make it easier than ever to spread.
I admit that I’ve fallen for fake news before. Roughly 20 years ago, I read an email message about a state legislator in Florida. The source of the message attributed some nasty remarks about the poor to this politician. I looked his office up on the web and sent him an angry email letting him know how wrong I thought he was.
Except he never said such things. I found that out later — not from his office, which probably was deleting email messages from folks like me — but from another source online. I’d fallen victim to fake news, because I failed to do my research.
It’s difficult to adequately research every “news” item that we read, but it’s a good idea to check things out before we take action on them. Here’s how:
- If the news item involves a legislative bill, look up the actual piece of legislation to determine its contents. It’s not a lot of fun, but it can prevent you from forwarding information such as “California is going to ban the Bible!” If you Google the bill in question by its number, you can find its text.
- Don’t trust content just because your friend posts it (that includes me). Check on it yourself. I recently read a post from a friend about a new kind of crime. I passed the warning on to my daughter, noting that I had not fact-checked it. She checked Snopes and told me that the “warning” was obsolete; technological changes had made that type of crime extremely difficult.
- Get your news from multiple reliable sources, ideally including sources that don’t always agree with your point of view. International news organizations can be helpful in providing a different perspective. While you’ll probably develop a favorite source, be certain to supplement it, at least occasionally, with additional sources — especially if you’re researching something.
- If the news item involves a quote, try to find the source. Did someone tweet something? While accounts can be hacked and posts can be deleted, see if you can find the actual tweet. Did someone say something as part of a speech? Try to find what they said in context as provided by a reliable news source. Then you can better judge if the information you are reading is true. By the way, this includes popular quotations. I have occasionally contacted living people to ask if they really said something that was attributed to them (and I’ve received responses!). It’s also a good idea to try to find the original source for quotations attributed to dead people; many quotations are attributed to the wrong person.
- Find scientific studies to back something up. Yes, studies can be flawed, and sometimes scientists provide bad data (of course, just because some do doesn’t mean that all do). But if you can find studies — ideally multiple studies from different sources — backing up a “fact,” then you probably can put some faith in that information. Think about the popular claim that children laugh hundreds of times more every day than adults do. This isn’t based on any sort of scientific research. Someone made the statement, people decided it was true, and the misinformation spread.
We’re all going to fall victim to fake news once in a while. We’ll be in a hurry, read something we’re inclined to believe, and form an opinion based on it (usually the opinion that we were right about “x” all along). We may even act on what we’ve read and pass it on. But when we take the time to research what someone else shares before we pass it along, we can help stop the spread of fake news. As Abraham Lincoln said, “Don’t believe everything you read on the Internet.” 😉