By Quentin Gordon-Smith
Dear young scholars, have you ever seen something on the internet that you thought was real but it was actually fake? For example, Stephen Curry making five full-court shots in a row. I know people who have seen that on Tiktok, Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat but that was actually fake; he didn’t make five in a row. That’s just one example, there are plenty more examples of something not true going viral. What is fake news and misinformation? Fake news is something that is not true but is published. The media is biased. They see the things you like and dislike and put more things that you like on your screen to capture you. Think of the internet as a fisherman and you guys are the fish. According to the media bias chart there are good sites to get your news from and bad sites to get your news from. The sites you don’t want to get your information from are Infowars, Enquirer, Newsmax, Palmer Report, RedState, the Daily Caller, the Blaze, and Natural News. Those sites are giving you information that is not true, they are in red. Some sites that are good to get information from are CNN, BBC, NPR, and ABC News; these sites are in the green. If you are not sure of how to tell what’s real and what’s fake use the Legit-O-Meter. The Legit-O-Meter is a scale to tell what information is good and what information is bad. This scale is in color green for good, yellow for in the middle, and red for fake. According to the Legit-O-Meter things that are in the green are if the website ends in “.org”, “.gov”, or “.edu,” they are usually real. Also, if the headlines seem direct and to the point meaning they tell you what the topic is going to be about, if the website has images with credits, evokes a strong emotional reaction, data is accurate and other organizations are reporting on the same story, and about us information so the site will tell you about the author and organization. Some things in the yellow are “sponsored content” that means they paid for advertisement, has bad grammar and punctuation problems, no information about us, and unusual URL endings such as “.com.co”. Some things in the red are images that seem too good to be true, tons of ads popping up, and the headlines of the story are using the words such as “epic,” “amazing,” “unbelievable,” or “incredible.” Misinformation spreads by going viral. The fake news that is published gets shared and people talk about it around the world. According to Chris Meserole’s article, “How misinformation spreads on social media and what to do about it” the solution to the problem is “promote police or government accounts so that accurate information is disseminated as quickly as possible. Alternatively, it could also display a warning at the top of its search and trending feeds about the unreliability of initial eyewitness accounts.” My advice to young scholars is to be careful of what you see on the internet because it might be fake and take your time to find out if that information is true or if it’s fake.
2 Comments
Ms. Clancy
2/28/2023 12:10:32 pm
He didn't really make 5 in a row?! I loved that TikTok!! My whole day is ruined!
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Lynn Girven
2/28/2023 04:12:40 pm
You got it! Corroborate your information. Besides what you listed as ways to get the real truth - - check out allsides.com!
Reply
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