How games can help us spot fake news

With tech companies like Facebook introducing new features, and governments around the world considering laws to disrupt the spread of fake news, games are also being made to help spot fake news.

The University of Cambridge developed Bad News as an educational tool, helping people understand how fake news spread. Players are encouraged to pick provocative and clickbait headlines to garner attention and grow their imaginary social media following.

The game teaches techniques used by fake news purveyors in an attempt to ‘demistify and illuminate’ fake news. By learning these techniques, players can learn to recognise signs such as fake profiles, and not be influenced by fake news.

As we’ve covered before, while laws and changes are great, helping people engage in critical thinking and fact checking to stay as informed citizens is still the most effective way to combat disinformation. Drawing from Inoculation theory, Bad News confers resistance against fake news by giving you insights into the various tactics fake news-mongers use. If you can recognise it, you can resist it.

You can play the game at Bad News, and for more information check out the developers page.

-Maria

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

Facebook’s Fight against Fake News

Facebook recently announced that it would trial a ‘context’ button that would help its users identify fake news.

Source: Truly Deeply

Following Mark Zuckerberg’s questioning by the US Congress, Facebook launched a campaign to address concerns against data misuse and the spread of misinformation. The new ‘context’ button is their latest move in the fight against fake news.

The feature, which rolled out in the US and UK, will make its way to Australian users. The button will appear on posts, and will give details about the publisher (such as their Wikipedia page), what posts the publisher has previously shared, and which friends have shared the article. In cases where there is no Wikipedia entry, it will indicate that information is unavailable, which will also be helpful context.

So how helpful is this?

Giving people quick and easy access to contextual information that can help them evaluate articles is definitely a step in the right direction. However, Facebook’s personalised newsfeed acts as a filter bubble, or echo chamber. For example, if I believed in aliens, and Facebook knows this because I’ve like a bunch of pages and posts about aliens. My entire newsfeed will reflect what I like, and that context button won’t matter because I’ve already decided on what I believe in before I’ve even clicked on that information.

*X-Files theme intensifies*

Whatever we already see on our newsfeed is information that is already tailored for us, and a context button might not be all that helpful if we live in an echo chamber.

 

 

-Maria

 

Art of Conning: Actual Fake News

As the last part of the series, this one will focus on actual fake news.

Source: Swadeology

Unlike satire, actual fake news deliberately aim to mislead and misinform whether for revenue or political purposes.

Alex Jones & Infowars

Managed by far-right conspiracy theorist, Alex Jones, Infowars has published harmful stories such as the tragic Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting and Boston Marathon bombing being hoaxes that involved ‘crisis actors’.

So, what are the tech companies doing?

After the Senate hearing about the alleged anti-conservative bias on major tech platforms where Facebook COO, Sheryl Sandberg, and Twitter CEO ,Jack Dorsey, testified, Twitter and Periscope permanently banned Alex Jones and Infowars from their platforms.

https://twitter.com/TwitterSafety/status/1037804427992686593?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1037804427992686593&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.vox.com%2F2018%2F9%2F6%2F17829264%2Falex-jones-info-wars-banned-twitter

Twitter follows Google parent, Alphabet, Inc, along with Apple, Facebook and Spotify in banning Jones and Infowars from posting content on their platforms. Since then, Paypal has also banned Jones and Infowars from using their service and platform.

Can of Worms?

While many has welcomed the ban, conservatives have criticised it as an infringement of free speech. To what extent does our opinions count as truths? How do we draw the line between an objective truth and an individual perspective?

-Maria

Art of Conning: A Half-Truth

 

We all think we’re pretty smart enough not to believe that weird article your grandma shared on Facebook.

Ok, Grandma

Source: Imgur

Thing is, fake news isn’t always that easy to spot. Sign in to any social media and the endless scrolling overwhelms you with huge amounts of information. On top of that, fake news spread quickly online, and before you can even fact check one article someone’s already got their pitchforks ready.

So, beyond obviously fake and manipulated photos/videos, how are you being conned online? This series will look at the ways were being deceived online by fake news when we least suspect it.

The first part of this series looks at how fake news deceive even the most media literate of us- when something real and true is presented as a lie.

When the Truth becomes a Lie

With millions of photos and videos being shared everyday, the Internet provides a rich database of content. Content that can easily be misinterpreted or decontextualised. According to a research by the Visual Social Media Lab, 30 percent of problematic photos are real, but out-of-context, photos.

During September 2017, a Facebook post claimed that the following video was Hurricane Irma tearing through Antigua and Barbuda.

 

This video wasn’t even shot in the Carribean. It was actually from April 2016, during a tornado in Dolores, Uruguay.

 

A Half-Truth

A half-truth is defined as a statement that contains elements of the truth, but is deceptive in nature.

In January 2018, Donald Trump, tweeted that Black Unemployment was at its lowest due to his policies.

Somebody please inform Jay-Z that because of my policies, Black Unemployment has just been reported to be at the LOWEST RATE EVER RECORDED!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 28, 2018

He isn’t technically wrong. Black unemployment was at record low, but the rate has been in decline since 2010.

Source: politifact

This is precisely what is problematic, and potentially terrifying, about fake news. We often see truth and facts as the means to combat fake news. But what happens when truth can be manipulated and presented as a lie? Who do we trust then?

Next in the series- Art of Conning: Manipulation

-Maria

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