Five ways to spot fake news

We all have to become digital detectives

The first is:

Where is this information coming from?

A lot of fake news sites,

try to create a URL which is similar to

a URL of a publication that you might know

or you might be familiar with.

Ultimately, the best way to understand

wheter or not a site is trustworthy

is to actually read the content on the site

not just one article on it

but other articles and see:

do they meet the standards

of quality journalism?

If it makes you really angry,

or really sad,

or it makes you burst out laughing,

that's actually a red flag to you,

because is kinda short circuiting

your logic center or your ability to think.

I can look up the author of that article,

I can see the other things they've written.

Is there an author of the article?

Because, that's an importante tip

in helping us figure out

wheter or not this piece of information

is actually real and trustworthy.

If i read something that says:

"Scientists say that

chocolate cake makes you smarter".

Well, what scientists?

and, what exactly did they say?

One of the ways

in which rumors spread is

that a lot of people

keep repeating the same information,

but nobody has verified it.

So, journalists depend on

high quality sources.

So, experts

how did you come across this information?

How do you know

that this information is true?

Someone takes that photo

that's maybe 3 years ago and say,

"This is happening right now".

We saw a lot of that

during recent hurricanes

Using a reverse image search

on Google

can tell you where that image

has appeared before and

who has shared it.

That can give you important tips

as to whether or not

the image is original,

whether or not the image is

in its original context.

This is what we have to do

we try to drill down a little bit deeper

than that first tweet

that tells you that chocolate cake

makes you smarter.