Fighting Fake News - A Guide

Well, Fake News has become a concept after the Nov. 8 United States election through headlines and has since been turned on its head. #Pizzagate was the story mostly pointed to as an example of Fake News by numerous media sites, and now the term is used liberally by President Trump to go after the MSM. I will not discuss any Fake News stories specifically - especially pizzagate - and I will give a quick rundown on some of the most important tips for fighting it without bias and I will also address how NOT to handle it. A lot of this may or not be already known, but it will be useful to share regardless in case you learn anything here.

1. Check if the source is satire.
   Satirical websites like The Onion publish fake news stories to mock, and make jokes. Usually sites will have an indicator at the bottom of the page, in the sidebars, or subtext somewhere in the article that the story is fake. Every site is different so if you are not able to find any indicator, you can Google the site you are browsing to see if it is a satirical source. Satire is harmless fun, just be sure to check so that a well written satirical piece doesn't fool you.

2. Check if the source allows comments.
   This is not an explicit indicator if a site is fake news. It is, however, a valuable tool that can let people show where a story gets the facts wrong. It would be much harder to publish a story littered with lies with a comments section pointing them all out for readers to be aware of. Commentators can always get it wrong too which is why this is not an explicit indicator, and it is why diligence needs to be applied to refutations of claims as well.

3. Does the headline answer the 5Ws and 1H: Who? What? When? Where? Why? and How?
   Headlines should answer as many of those questions as possible. When you see a headline that is posed as a question or uses non-specific language, it is likely that the information that follows will not be of much substance. Extreme examples of this are called "clickbait," where you have to click the article to get to the point. For example take "What this low income student said to his teacher shocked everyone." You ask yourself "What student?" "What did he say?" "Why did he say this?" Sites get paid by ad impressions and clicks, thus the less specific the title the more likely you are to click the link and learn more so the site can earn revenue. The best way to fight Fake News is to cut it off at the head and not let these sites earn revenue like this. Do not click links with vague titles, and do not share them. Instead, hide the posts if possible so they are not as apparent in your feed.

To see good examples of clickbait and vague titles check this site out: http://www.upworthygenerator.com/

1. Use archives.
   This is an extension of the last point, but limiting your viewership of sites majorly hurts Fake News. Even if you block ads, other metrics are still sent to the site that can be sold and boost their popularity. To prevent page views for a site you may want to point out as Fake News, take a screenshot of the page with ScreenGrab or enter the page into archive.is so that metrics are disrupted. As a bonus, these archives allow readers to examine the changes to articles over time and lets them hold journalists accountable with a permanent copy of their story.

2. Review the primary sources before accepting the story.
   Video, images, and all sorts of recordings can be accessed live and at any point in the future. Since you are able to see for yourself, you should exercise your right to do so. If a story is written about a person with heavy use of adjectives, then you should check said person's history and look into them yourself and compare your conclusions with the ones presented in reports. It is easy to fall for hearsay which means it is extremely important to verify if what you are being told about people is accurate and balanced.

What NOT to do:

1. Judge the source - The substance is where truth and lies are found. Dismissing and following specific sources takes focus from vigilance directed toward what you are reading and moves it toward a few organizations and personalities.
2. Trust algorithms - Algorithms can't do the thinking for you. Blue Feed, Red Feed is a wonderful example of why, and making slight changes to make feeds more purple does nothing to address the root of the issue of skepticism.
3. Share stories - Algorithms spread info based on engagement. If you "Like," comment, or share a story on social media it will indicate to the algorithm that a post is gaining traction and the post will expand to reach the page's entire audience. Look out for links and images that specifically ask you to engage with a story in any way. Note that this is especially true on FaceBook.

Those were 5 quick tips that I hope you enjoyed reading and learned something from. I tried to keep this neutral for any outlet ranging from some guy with a webcam all the way up to the mainstream media. Thank you for reading!