Seeking the truth and NOT what’s comfortable

People Sometimes Seek The Truth, But Most Prefer Like-minded Views

It may be hard to believe everything that is said on a blog like this where you have no idea who the authors are. However, you can always trust an educated and respected expert journalist on disseminating wisdom on how to navigate the current mediasphere.

Let us introduce you to Christiane Amanpour, a world-respected (2.9million followers on Twitter!) journalist who has spoken to world leaders, reported on devastating wars and has earned the trust of her viewers and at a TedxGlobal event, she expressed her views on fake news

Watch her TedTalk Now: 

If you’re a bit time poor, here is a quick summary of some of her insights and tips on “How to seek truth in the era of fake news” (ROM) – research, objectivity, morality

Research

‘Research the facts’ may seem redundant and oversaid but nevertheless crucial. If you understand the research, and the facts behind the truth you will have a better context. “so if 99.9 percent of the science on climate is empirical, scientific evidence, but it’s competing almost equally with a handful of deniers, that is not the truth; that is the epitome of fake news.” People are entitled to their opinions, but if you have a massive group of professionals supporting their research, consider it to be truthful.

Objectivity

The battle between bias and objectively is clear in any news source. Being able to tell a story from every angle and not a personal perspective is without a doubt hard. However,  the issue is that objectivity is not the same as fair and balanced. This is where Amanpour brings in a personal story when she was accused of not being an objective reporter when presenting on the Balkan Wars as she reported more on the minority party of the incident. Here she realises that ‘objectivity means giving all sides an equal hearing and talking to all sides, but not treating all sides equally, not creating a forced moral equivalence or a factual equivalence.” Objectivity constantly hangs in the balance. This can be a challenging yet impactful way to seek truth.

Morality

We all have different morals and here Amanpour asks for developers and technology giants to build morality and quote “Filter out the Crap! You guys are good at technology, let’s figure out an algorithm that works. Can we not?” Despite having good intentions, I disagree with pushing all the responsibility to commercial giants to tackle the issue as I have repeatedly said that the answer relies on informed citizenship, being aware of what we read and what we share and contribute as digital citizens.

Not only Amanpour has shed light on the fake news epidemic, in fact many other experts have also spoken on the topic. Check it out here.

-Cecilia

When was the last time you logged onto Facebook and got out in less than 5 min?

A thought occurred to me the other day, being a 90s baby, I’ve never known life without the internet and split-second information acquisition. What are the latest fashion trends? How long will Trump be in office for? Where can I get a bagel? Along with our ability to acquire pieces of mostly inconsequential data, we have the ability to access almost any piece of entertainment, a feat that was inconceivable before. Now, what’s the side effect?

Distraction 

Ask yourself this: when was the last time you logged onto Facebook and got out in less than five minutes?

If you’re anything like me, the answer is not recently. All those Memes waiting to be tagged and videos to be watched, it seems we can’t help ourselves but get distracted.

People in my generation are so bombarded with so much information and news on the internet that we cannot fully appreciate what we consume. What are we actually contributing? Is this why fake news has grown so exponentially?

Tristan Harris the founder of the non-profit organisation ‘Time Well Spent‘ has some good food for thought.

Here’s his motive and what he says: “With Time Well Spent, we want technology that cares about helping us spend our time, and our lives, well – not seducing us into the most screen time, always-on interruptions or distractions”

This naturally aligns with fake news, we want to be able to trust the media, trust what we read and not be seduced to click-bait sensationalised articles for monetary gains. Which hurts civilization more: no one believing anything, or everyone believing lies? If we fail to take immediate action to protect our news and information ecosystem we may soon reach the reality of no one believing anything. Therefore, I cannot stress how important it is in being active in demanding the truth and reading critically online. So what’s stopping you?

If you are interested more in his work and the organisation, check out this interview

P.S In the future world according to Google, people walking down the street with a smartphone will be reminded to turn right or buy milk when their internet fridge is empty. So before we lose the ability to think for ourselves let’s help out the media and help them be a true representation of the world we are living in.

 

 

Cecilia

Facts vs. Fake

One of the best ways to combat the circulation of Fake News is digital and media literacy.

It’s not always easy to spot fake news. If you’re in doubt, here are some helpful tips on how to spot fake news:

Check the Website

 

• Look at the URL. Does it end with a ‘com.co’? Probably fake.
• Heaps of popups and ad banners?
• Check their About page

Read the Article

 

• Do they cite their sources?
• Are the links to legitimate websites?
• Is there a strong bias?

 

Still Doubting?

 

• If you’re still unsure, don’t share it
• Contribute to truths, don’t spread lies

 

 

Here’s a helpful infograph you can share:

 

-Maria

 

 

 

3 ways to spot a Fake Image

Image manipulation is common practice in the creation of fake news. Images are powerful messaging tools that serve as a mental shortcuts for the human brain.

Journalists use fake images to exaggerate situations and sensationalise news.

Here are three ways to assess the validity of an image:

 

1. 1. Use a reverse image search

 

A reverse image search will reveal whether the image has been taken from another website or modified. See below a fake photo of Vladimir Putin sitting powerfully surrounded by other world leaders.

2. Check the shadows

If people or objects have been inserted into images their shadows will not match the other objects in the frame. Using a ruler and pencil, rule a line from a point on an object to a corresponding point on the shadow and compare the lines to spot the inserted image.

Steps:

• Right click on the image.
• Select Copy image address.
• Go to Google and select Images from the top right corner.
• You will get the Google Search box with a camera icon.  Click on the camera icon,and paste the image address in the Paste image URL box.
• This will bring up a list of results showing where that image has been published on the internet.

3. Use fact checking websites

Snopes, Factcheck.org, or PolitiFact are three good options.

See article below by Snopes of a shark that has been inserted into a flooded street to sensationalise the flood.

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/pool-shark/

-Jake

 

 

 

 

 

Test Your Detective Skills

You may think that you’re a pro at identifying fake headlines because of how bizarre and exaggerated they can get, why not test your skills?

Take the quiz to find out:

Snippet:

We would love to know how well you did.

Post a comment down below and share your results! 🙂

-Cecilia

Ferreting Out #FakeNews

Shoutout to this blog post, sharing the same insights as us, we also agree that attention should be focused on the digital citizens as they are the primary group who consume, share and publish content online. We need to form a habit of asking questions and reading beyond face value rather than relying solely on the big companies like Facebook and Google to solve our problems.

bluesyemre

Information literacy skills are something teacher librarians deliver in depth; providing expertise, resources, research, and collaboration to ensure this happens for students throughout our country. We need to make certain students become information literate. More importantly, we must instill the desire to care about distinguishing between what is accurate and reliable information and what is not.

To that end, the editors of Teacher Librarian created the poster Ferreting Out Fake News as a quick guide and reminder for students (and others) who need to learn how to identify fake news. Please feel free to download a copy for your library and classroom, and to share with others.

Click here to download a hi-res PDF copy of the poster.

View original post

Read before you Share

Here’s a random thought, how about we all read a full article before we share it to our friends? – simple enough yeah? In reality, statistics show that:

59 Percent Of You Will Share an Article without even Reading It

Why you ask? First, the human attention span is getting shorter everyday- why else are we so attracted to GIFs and MEMES?

Second, we are lazy (to put it bluntly). It requires time and effort to read an article.

Third, some headlines are just too intriguingly funny, weird, touching or interesting not to share right away. In fact, we love the attention from friends and social media when we share an article and the ‘fake’ reputation that we read.  It’s no wonder that the strength and popularity of a piece sometimes comes down to the strength of its headline.

But do we really want to become a generation of lazy, manipulated, misinformed users? 

In the war against fake news, we’ve already tried multiple solutions.

1. we’ve used algorithms by digitally identifying false information and validating information- but, how reliable is this? Can machines differentiate humoristic or sarcasm or even bias?
2. Our friend Facebook has actively installed tools to prevent misleading/spam posts. They have provided us options to hide content with our own classifications of what is false. – but, have any of you used these tools yet?
3. Even Governments have been active, countries such as Malaysia have turned to legislation and laws to combat fake news. However , censorship and freedom of speech concerns render the laws ineffective and counterproductive as debates of whether fake news should be considered ‘illegal’ continue

The real solution lies in you

We can’t escape from bias but we can’t escape from facts either. Think twice before you share the next thing you read. 

Cecilia