Handbook of Media Literacy by Internews Ukraine

TIPS TO PROTECT YOURSELF FROM INFORMATION MANIPULATIONS

DON’T LET YOURSELF BE MISLED

In today’s turbulent information world, it is very easy to become a victim of manipulation. Manipulation means covert management of people and processes, in particular with the help of information tools. We developed 10 tips that can protect you from such manipulations. These tips are based on the Information Security online course that was developed by Internews Ukraine NGO in 2021 with support from the NATO Information and Documentation Center in Ukraine. If you want to learn more, we invite you to take the course that is available on the Prometheus platform. More detailed information can be found on internews.ua.

TRUST, BUT VERIFY

Trust is the fundamental virtue of a society. There is no society without trust. One of the major problems of modern societies (not only the Ukrainian society) is a low level of trust. Sometimes we have a feeling that someone wants to mislead, deceive, or even destroy us. Trust should be developed. Yet, it should not be turned into blind faith. Therefore, trust should always contain such components as critical perspective and veriﬁcation. One should always seek balance between absolute trust and absolute distrust. This means you should trust, but verify. When you can see that some information or source is not trustworthy after having used simple information veriﬁcation procedures, then do not trust them. When information is balanced, well-argued, presents different positions, and is free from emotional manipulations, then you probably can trust it. Still, be prudent.

KNOW WHEN EMOTIONS ARE YOUR FRIEND, AND WHEN THEY ARE YOUR ENEMY

Emotions can be positive or negative; they can carry love or hate, feelings of unity or war. The big task is to understand when they help us, and when they harm us. Emotions can evoke empathy or cause a desire to kill or destroy. The brain areas responsible for emotions were formed during the earliest stages of our evolution. They were – and still are – a system of warning and triggering immediate response aimed primarily at avoiding danger. Therefore, ‘emotional’ dimensions of processes in our brain are faster than ‘rational’ dimensions. They capture the entire brain, our entire being, in order to prevent penetration of other thoughts and elements. In our interaction with information, emotions very often do not let us look at the reality from different angles. In this sense, emotions can narrow our perspective. An important tip therefore is that any information that causes emotions should be quarantined. Give yourself time to calm down and your emotions to settle, and then re-read it, and try to separate the wheat from the chaff. That is why you should not make important decisions in a state of euphoria, when you have a sense of need, importance, appreciation, etc. Manipulations in advertising are based, as a rule, on psychological features of a human being. That is why it is very difficult to resist them. 4

If you like such media products as talk shows, you should also be careful. Talk shows oftentimes seek to manipulate your emotions. Therefore, do not take everything said or demonstrated in them for granted. Check the presented facts if they cause surprise or outrage. The fastest way to do this is to use Internet resources, so just google the number, the quote or the name of an expert you do not know. Remember that you have most trust in the politicians and experts you like. Yet, even their statements have to be veriﬁed. No one is perfect. Try to see which of the talk show participants is the most emotional and speaks more than others and in the most emotional way. Perhaps, this is the participant who misinforms you by playing on emotions. Finally, do not rely on the reaction of the audience in the studio. You should always have your own opinion and attitude about people, developments, and facts. Based on the materials prepared by Tetiana Matychak, Aliona Romaniuik, and Volodymyr Yermolenko

TRUST SOLID SCIENCE Only scientists can make scientific conclusions, therefore: check if advice is given by a qualified professional who has strong reputation in their sphere and/or works for a reputable institution; question the statements that are corroborated only by general phrases such as ‘scientists proved’. Abstract ‘scientists’ do not exist; there are specific researcher who provide specific conclusions that are confirmed or not confirmed by other researchers; check the researcher’s standing among his/her colleagues, look up his/her scientific publications – these should be published in reputable magazines; remember: astrology, psychics, and the like are not sciences! They belong to the domain of superstitions and primal beliefs. Remember that there are series of manipulations around non-reviewed studies. There are websites where scientists publish their research and, together with other scientists, discuss and provide arguments for their position, and sometimes, when they understand that they made a mistake, they delete their materials. However, journalists and the media pretend that this information is true and, in this way, they mislead us. The study can be trusted if it has been reviewed by other experts and published in reputable outlets. Based on the materials prepared by Tetiana Matychak and Aliona Romaniuk 7

FRIENDS AND ACQUAINTANCES ARE NOT ALWAYS EXPERTS; SOCIAL MEDIA ARE NOT ALWAYS A SOURCE

Our friends and acquaintances are a source of our great joy and pleasant emotions. You should and need to trust your closets people, talk to them and help them, but they are not experts in everything. You should not trust information shared by someone only because you know this person well. Being a ‘good person’ is not a profession, and people can be wrong with the best intentions, just because they do not know something. A lot of social media kind of replace friends and acquaintances for us. We have too much trust in those with whom we chat, and this can be dangerous. Have a closer look, for instance, at Viber chats and groups. Once we used to communicate with our relatives with the help of SMS and phone. After Viber came, everything became free and much more convenient. Then, the messenger’s circle of communication expanded and included colleagues, neighbors, and others. Yet, these were still the people we know. That is why the messenger got the label ‘everyone’s one of us here’. Therefore, as soon as some important, useful or sensationalistic information appears, everyone is sharing it with others generously, because the ﬁrst thing to do is to warn your people about the danger. Same as you should share a lifehack that makes life easier or saves it. The popularity of Viber was growing, and very soon, our circle of communication expanded and began to include absolute strangers as well as ordinary bots. 9

However, the ‘one of us’ label remained. It is this label that forms a basis for the spread of fakes. All you need to do is to add ‘warn everyone’ or ‘share because this information is deleted everywhere’ to your message – and no one will be able to stop the avalanche of messages. The coronavirus pandemic demonstrated the power of Viber. Safety and health is exactly the type of information that is shared through the messenger instantaneously. In order to protect yourself from manipulations, check the settings and make sure you cannot be added to chats of communities without your consent. Use secure messengers for conﬁdential communication (such as Signal). Do not forget to set a reliable and unique password, and use two-factor authentication. Before you subscribe to a channel, check the author or the media. Make sure that the channel really belongs to them. Based on the materials prepared by Oksana Moroz and Volodymyr Yermolenko

BE CAREFUL WITH PHOTOS AND VIDEOS

When we see a photo or video, it can look like a fact offhand, because these are visuals materials that reproduce the event, person, object, place, and so on. However, today both photos and videos are sources of a huge number of manipulations. Below, there are some types of manipulations we encounter in visual content. The ﬁrst type of photo- or video fakes is forgery at the moment of shooting. For instance, in 2015 a photo of a boy shot against the background of destroyed buildings was shared actively in the social media. The caption read that a smeared boy from Donetsk was looking for his ‘mother amidst the remnants of houses bomb-destroyed by the Armed Forces of Ukraine’. In reality, the picture was a still frame from a video clip called Angel. Song about Children of Donbas where this child featured. Little actors – a boy and a girl – were looking for help. Fact-checkers found out that their parents are alive. The second type implies editing with the help of special photo- and video software. For instance, in 2020 social media users shared a photo of Queen Elizabeth II wearing a Ukrainian embroidered shirt (vyshyvanka). Everyone thanked the Queen and cheered actively. However, examination of the photo demonstrated that on the original photo the Queen was wearing turquoise apparel, and not vyshyvanka. 12

Her Majesty was addressing the British people with regard to the COVID-19 pandemic. The third and the most frequent type is using a photo out of context. This happens when real photos or videos were shot in certain circumstances but are used to illustrate a completely different story. For instance, a video of a city being engulfed by a wave of water was shared by the Ukrainian Facebook audience. The caption read that a dam broke in China and already killed a hundred thousand of people. In fact, this was a video of the 2011 tsunami in Japan. Finally, the fourth and the most complicated type is a combination of all of the above, when the image is both retouched and used in a manipulative and decontextualized way. Bottom line: look out for all possible manipulations. And do not accept all photos and videos you see at face value. Based on the materials prepared by Viktoria Romaniuk

REMEMBER THAT FAKES ABOUT MEDICINES CAN KILL Fakes about medicines and ways of treatment can kill. However, it is too late when a person realizes that he/she was misled. Several things should be remembered: Fakes occur where there is a lack of information and increased demand for a specific topic. Fakes and manipulations spread quickly when it comes to life, health, and person’s safety. Therefore, you should be especially careful with any information shared about such topics. Information sent via messengers often comes from an unreliable source or reaches you in a distorted form. It is not trustworthy. Rule of thumb: do not share a message if you have doubts as to its credibility. Do not share a message or post it, if it is the first desire you have after reading it. What are the types of disinformation on medical topics (first of all, coronavirus) that we can see today? The first type of disinformation are conspiracy fakes and conspiracy theories. In simple words, these are stories and arguments that explain coronavirus, vaccination and quarantine restrictions as being a result of a secret plan of influential people or organizations. Such fakes were shared by pseudo-experts as well as by Members of Parliament, political technologists, bloggers, and the media.

As a result of this disinformation campaign, 66% of the Ukrainians believe that coronavirus has artiﬁcial origin, although the evidence is absent. The second type of disinformation is related to efficiency of coronavirus treatment with the help of various medicines. One should understand that medicines used by physicians around the world only relieve symptoms. Consequently, all reports on effectiveness of certain means is a fake or manipulation. Self-medication and use of antibiotics, antimalarial, or heavy-duty antiviral medications can present serious health hazard. That is why you should not rush to a pharmacy and buy each and every available medication advertised as a cure for coronavirus. The third type of disinformation are fakes and manipulations about the ways of prevention and treatment of coronavirus. Reports and materials on folk and alternative methods of COVID-19 treatment, unfortunately, demonstrate their inefficiency. Urine therapy, alcohol, ginger, garlic, and other home remedies will not cure you. Yet, they can harm you. Based on the materials prepared by Aliona Romaniuk

BEWARE OF BOTS AND TROLLS

Social media offer numerous beneﬁts. Yet, there are not only your friends and relatives there, but also bots, trolls, and malefactors. Bot is special software that performs some actions automatically in accordance with a pre-set schedule using the same social media interfaces as an ordinary user. Unlike bots, trolls are real people present in the social media under fake accounts. They can insult other users or their opinions, provoke conﬂicts, and avoid constructive conversation by all means. In contemporary environment, a combined approach is used more and more frequently, i.e. using a bot and an individual at the same time. Bot farms are groups of people who work physically with a large number of bots. Using special interfaces, people leave likes, comments and share posts from many accounts for a small fee. How can you identify bots and trolls? First, bots and trolls often have no avatar, or they use an abstract picture or drawing instead of a regular photo. Another important feature of a bot or a troll is the lack of their own content and publications. Instead, such accounts repost content from other pages regularly, or have no posts at all.

In addition to this, bots post a lot of external links to the third-party sites in the comments. You should remember that bots use links on average three times more often than real people. A mismatch between the date of registration and the number of publications is another factor indicating that the account is possibly a bot or a troll. For instance, an account registered a month ago and already having several hundred posts raises suspicions. Pay attention to activity hours of accounts. If they are registered in the United States but publish their posts during the day Moscow time, there is something wrong with them. At the same time, keep in mind that bots and trolls can disguise themselves very skillfully, while real people’s behavior can be weird. Therefore, these rules are not universally applicable, and each account should be treated individually. Based on the materials prepared by Vitalii Rybak

BE CAREFUL WHEN ONLINE

The world of technologies opens up a lot of opportunities, but also a lot of threats for us. It makes our communication faster and easier, but it creates a multitude of additional vulnerable points that can make us fall victims to malefactors. How can you protect yourself from ill-minded persons online? Here are some tips: always remember that You can be attacked. Hence, look out for possible threats; Do not add strangers as friends; Avoid disclosing your mobile phone number; If you received threats, send a complaint to social media administrators, block the user, and inform cyber police; Use secure messengers (for instance, Signal is much safer than Viber); Use the double authentication option; Keep you passwords secure, for instance, with the help of special applications.

So-called phishing letters are especially dangerous. These letters contain a malicious element that can harm you, e.g. infect your computer with a virus, steal data, and so on. Phishing is usually done via e-mail. Through e-mail, malefactors can: send a counterfeit letter to you, misinform you or make you do something. For instance, pretending they are your colleague, they can ask you to share sensitive information: documents, passwords, etc.; send a link to a fake website where your password can be stolen; include malicious software in the letter. Such malicious letters can come to your inbox (and not spam) folder. This means it is your responsibility to recognize such message and respond properly by deleting it. Therefore, you should remember the following algorithm: Check the e-mail address of the sender carefully – if it is a real letter from your bank’s address, and not a similar address; Before you click a button or a link, point a mouse at them in order to see, which website they will bring you to; Do not open ﬁles immediately, but check the on virustotal.com website ﬁrst. Based on the materials prepared by Vitalii Moroz and Pavlo Bielousov

BE VIGILANT AGAINST NUMBERS Use of numbers often creates and illusion of ‘iron-clad arguments’. That is why numbers are so often manipulated. Therefore, when working with statistical information or sociological data you should remember several important rules. You should only trust official information. Reliable sources include the websites of governmental institutions (State Statistics Service, National Bank of Ukraine, Ministry of Energy, Naftogaz, Ministry of Finance, State Treasury Department, Pension Fund, etc.). The data has to provide a complete picture of the phenomenon. When statistics describe something in a totally positive or totally negative light, the probability it high that it is fake because one-sided presentation is one of the favorite tools of manipulators. Look for comparability of the data. For instance, comparing salaries and other incomes in a dollar equivalent is not correct since the national currency of Ukraine is hryvnia, and not dollar. Furthermore, inﬂation must always be taken into consideration in such comparisons. If you have doubts as to interpretation and use of statistics, ask experts. However, not all people who call themselves so are experts. Before you trust a professional’s opinion, you should check their education, specialization, and reputation, and look at their rhetoric in the mass media and social media.

You should also keep in mind that sociology is science. Trust reliable scientists only. Talking about sociological research, you should ﬁnd answers to the following questions: Who carried out the survey? Is it a credible company? Or is it a company that was created ‘specially for elections’? Who was surveyed? Does the sampling reﬂect the structure of the Ukrainian population, or was only one age or professional category surveyed? When was the survey carried out? For instance, health care reform was launched in Ukraine on April 1, 2020. Therefore, if the survey of the level of medical doctors’ satisfaction with the reform was carried out in May, it will not demonstrate the real effect of the implemented changes. How was the question phrased? The wording of the question determines the answer to it. For instance, the answer of more than 70% Ukrainians to the question Should the moratorium on agricultural lands be lifted? was No, it should not. Yet, when answering the question Should the owner of a land share have a right to dispose of it, including selling it? almost the same number of respondents said Yes, they should. However, the questions were about the same topic, i.e. opening the land market. Based on the materials prepared by Svitlana Slipchenko

UNDERSTAND HOW THE INTERNET WORKS

Fakes, disinformation, and manipulation are aimed at forming a distorted picture of the world for you. They can refer to absolutely different spheres of life. Almost the largest channel of their dissemination is the Internet. For instance, the results provided by popular search engines, such as Google, are influenced first of all by the choice of language. When the query language is Russian, the key links will be to the Russian media with their narratives. This is explained by functioning of the algorithm, according to which popular links appear on the top of the page, i.e. those that are clicked by a large audience. A great role is also played by our search history. This means that if you like reading news from fake news sites, the search engine will conclude that these are the most optimal information resource for you, and accordingly it will offer similar links for you. Each our action in the Internet has consequences. Google is a wonderful illustration for it. The results of our search are influenced by what we look for in related services (YouTube, Gmail), what we write in messengers and other services of this corporation. All its services are integrated in such a way that they study us to the maximum and, taking the results into consideration, develop the optimal – from the Google’s point of view – set of materials.

Of course, our involvement with the material also matters – how long we read it, whether we share it, forward a link to it, etc. As a result, on the ﬁrst page of your search, you will receive an ‘optimal package’ that is traditional for digital platforms and was created personally for you. Therefore, the results of search for the same information will be different for different users. When you are looking for information about a non-controversial topic, for instance, how to bake a pie, then you will simply receive the results of the Google algorithm functioning. However, when looking for information about a controversial or potentially controversial topic, there is a high probability that you will receive the results deep-laid by a manipulator. To protect yourself from manipulations, you should understand the original sources. If you are studying a specialized topic that is new to you or original sources in a foreign language with complex terminology, it can be recommended that you resort to objective secondary sources, i.e. media or experts. However, check them carefully. There are no holy media or sources of information. Everyone can make mistakes. Check information by comparing it with the data from other sources. Based on the materials prepared by Oksana Moroz

The manual is based on the Information Security online course that was developed by Internews Ukraine NGO in 2021 with support from the NATO Information and Documentation Center in Ukraine. The course is available on the Prometheus platform. The manual uses the materials prepared by experts in media space and disinformation who were involved in development of the course. They are Pavlo Bielousov, Volodymyr Yermolenko, Tetiana Matychak, Vitalii Moroz, Oksana Moroz, Vitalii Rybak, Aliona Romaniuk, Viktoria Romaniuk, Svitlana Slipchenko.