FAKE NEWS

Common sense tips to spot fake news

1 Who made this post? 2 Who do they want to view it? 3 Who benefits from this post and who might be harmed by it? 4 Has any information been left out of this post that might be important? 5 Is a reliable source reporting the same news? If not, it doesn’t mean it’s not true, but it does mean you should dig a little deeper.

commonsensemedia.org The fake news glossary

POST-TRUTH Relates to circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief. FILTER BUBBLE A State of intellectual isolation caused when an individual is separated from information that disagrees with their viewpoints. CONFIRMATION BIAS When people would like a certain concept to be true, they are drawn to evidence that supports it. NATIVE ADVERTISEMENT A paid ad that matches the look, feel and function of the site on which it appears.

Stamford University Research

■ More than 80% of students surveyed believed a sponsored content article was a real news story. ■ Only a quarter of students recognised the significance of Twitter’s blue check mark. ■ 40% of students believed a headline solely because the photograph underneath it seemed to confirm it.

Wineburg, Sam and McGrew, Sarah and Breakstone, Joel and Ortega, Teresa. (2016). Evaluating Information: The Cornerstone of Civic Online Reasoning. Stanford Digital Repository. Available at: purl. stanford.edu/fv751yt5934

PSYCHOLOGYTODAY.COM The Fake News Game. COMMONSENSEMEDIA.ORG How to Spot Fake News (and Teach Kids to Be Media Savvy). SMITHSONIAN.COM The Age-Old Problem of ‘Fake News’. THEGUARDIAN.COM Fake news sharing in US is a rightwing thing, says study.

BY SIMON HARDING

WHEN WE’RE FED LINES AS HEADLINES.

Allegations of fake news have been an almost daily occurrence in the US over the past few years, and it has become a term used—in some circumstances—to merely deride those with opposing views. But the concept of fake news is not a new phenomenon. False stories have triggered persecution and revolution, and been the difference between defeat and victory, for centuries.

The Smithsonian provides a classic example. Thomas Hutchinson, the eighteenth century Governor of Massachusetts was exasperated by the constant stream of fake news appearing in the Boston Gazette. His issue was that because the people read little else, they could never be ‘undeceived’. He was right to be concerned too. In 1765, the false stories whipped the people of Massachusetts into such a frenzy that they burned down his mansion!

Back to the twentyfirst century, and it is the algorithms of the internet giants that have spawned what is called the ‘posttruth’ era. Whenever we conduct a search, view a newsfeed or timeline, what we are presented with is only a fraction of what we could be seeing. If Google, Facebook and Twitter didn’t filter our feeds, we would be overwhelmed by data in an instant. So they use our previous searches, likes and dislikes to deliver content that they believe we are likely to want to consume. And therein lies the problem. Homogenising the information we receive can lead to the creation of a ‘filter bubble’, in which we become surrounded only by information that we want to see, and isolated from anything that might be at odds with our view of the world.

The problem comes when we develop a ‘confirmation bias’, where our desire for something to be true makes it more likely that we will believe it. This is what the fakers prey on. The false information they create is usually sensational and emotive, and as a result is more widely shared on social media than the far more boring truth. Research on Twitter usage has shown that a false story spreads much faster, and to a wider audience, than a genuine one. And that makes those who receive their news solely from social media or online feeds—most likely our children—highly susceptible to misinformation, mis-reporting and, worst of all, lies.

Google and Facebook are responding in different ways to fake news. In its attempt to strengthen quality journalism, Google has launched GNI, a $300million initiative aimed at cleaning up false news. Facebook, on the other hand, is making changes to its complex algorithm that decides what to present each user in their newsfeed, but looking for a mathematical solution to what is likely an emotional problem seems like an uphill battle.

Several organisations have taken on the challenge of debunking some of the more notorious fake news stories, but the volume is such that they can barely scratch the surface. And in any case, even an awareness of the existence of these organisations would be unlikely to help our children. Studies by Stamford University have shown that children of all ages don’t even think to question a source when reading content or viewing images. In one test, more than 80% of students considered a ‘native advertisement’ to be a real news story, even though it carried the label ‘sponsored article’.

In the meantime, we as parents have a role to play in helping our children to identify fake news. Common Sense Media, a leading not-for-profit organisation dedicated to helping children navigate today’s media, suggests that as children of all ages mostly receive their news via feeds, they need to learn how to view these stories critically. This is something parents can help with, and they provide a list of tips. They suggest we discuss articles that we believe to be false, and coach our children on how we reached that conclusion.

An article called ‘The Fake News Game’, published in Psychology Today goes one step further and suggests one way to understand how fake news works is to use the techniques yourself. To reach this conclusion, researchers developed a game called Bad News—which you can play yourself—and studied whether it improved students’ ability to identify fake news.

The world in which our children operate is so different to the one most of us grew up in. We’ve been able to consume our news, safe in the knowledge that what we’re viewing, or reading, is fact—if perhaps a little coloured on occasion. We now need to find ways to give our children the same confidence in what they are presented with.