Fake News Disinformation Fake News Evaluating Internet

Bonisiwe Shabane

-Dec 5, 2025, 9:59 PM

fake news disinformation fake news evaluating internet

I'm so old I remember when the Internet was supposed to make us smarter. The same will be said of AI. “Fake news” has been around for a long, long time. It is also one facet of “library instruction” that we have been fighting for years—that most people don’t take the time to read or comprehend something, fake or not. They read what they want to read (or watch or listen) and move on to the next thing; talking heads on your screen keep talking about things they don't know or understand and we... It seems there is a large, willing population eating this junk up without fail.

Very few people stop and actually think, which has been made much worse by the Internet and social media (mainstream social media doesn't care about fake news and the like anymore. And a follow-up piece here). “Information” is coming at us too quickly. This topic is also a facet of evaluating Internet information--it's not just news, but anything you find in media (online or via "old fashioned" television). Three (so far) episodes of Brian Dunning's Skeptoid podcast are about this topic of critically thinking about something you see or hear or read: a podcast in November 2022 How to Spot Fake News,... Is much of this advice common sense?

Yes. So why do people still want to believe this stuff? By now, I think, people have just stopped thinking about anything. Disinformation Stops with You is an 6 page infographic from the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency. Can you see a trend here? Stop and really think, maybe?

An ongoing topic of fake news is the misinformation and disinformation generated by Russia (or frankly anyone) regarding their invasion of Ukraine. A number of resources are pointing out this misinformation and how to spot it: Check About and About me pages: Clicking on or investigate authors names to consider their credentials in context should be a regular part of the research journey. Interrogate URLs: We see quite a bit of domain manipulation these days. For instance, what looks like an .edu domain, followed by .co or “lo” is likely a fake or deceptive site. If you are you seeing a slightly variant version of a well-known URL, do a little investigating.

Suspect the sensational: When we see something posted that looks sensational, it is even more important to be skeptical. Exaggerated and provocative headlines with excessive use of capital letters or emotional language are serious red flags. Go back to the source: When an article mentions a study, if you can, go directly to the source and check its bona fides as well. Go back to the story again (and again): When was the story written? What is its context? Breaking news will continue to break.

Early reports are built from limited information so you’ll want to watch a story grow into a fuller picture. "Fake news" means different things to different people. For some people, it refers to falsified news reports purposefully designed to deceive people. For others, "fake news" refers to any information that they don't like or agree with. Because of this, it can be difficult to have a productive conversation about the problem of "fake news." "The term 'fake news' once referred to misinformation designed to look like legitimate news, but the term has been rendered meaningless and counterproductive through overuse and political weaponization."

While the term "fake news" may be overly politicized, it is a very real problem that we should all be aware of, especially when searching for information online. The short video below [3:19] discusses how the term "fake news" gets used (and misused), and examines some of the differences between real news and fake news: Misinformation: False or inaccurate information, especially that which is deliberately intended to deceive. Disinformation: A form of propaganda involving the dissemination of false information with the deliberate intent to deceive or mislead. About this guide: The purpose of this guide is to provide insights and strategies for overcoming confusion around identifying credible information. Over the past decade, our online information landscape has been dramatically transformed.

As a result, telling fact from opinion, and identifying credible journalism, has become more difficult. Whether you are a concerned citizen or an educator, this guide is for you. Misinformation is defined as false, incomplete, inaccurate/misleading information or content which is generally shared by people who do not realize that it is false or misleading. This term is often used as a catch-all for all types of false or inaccurate information, regardless of whether referring to or sharing it was intentionally misleading.Disinformation is false or inaccurate information that is... Wardle created the “7 Types of Information Disorder,” a typology that illustrates and emphasizes the types of information disorder in our media landscape, and this information disorder glossary. This typology was derived from a report commissioned by the Council of Europe.

Essential questions to ask when analyzing information center on the authority of the source/author and the purpose of the information: Authority: Who wrote/sponsored it? Purpose: What do they want me to do with the information? Conspiracy theories and propaganda tap into our deepest fears, emotion, and deeply held beliefs or values. Our tendency toward cognitive biases also helps to make belief in these theories immune to logic. We often wonder how any rational and logical-thinking person could believe in them, but facts don’t win arguments. If you find the tone, language or claims of a piece of information inspire visceral fear or anger, it’s a good idea to investigate the claims elsewhere by cross-referencing them with a variety of...

Please review and follow our use conditions if you are interested in using or reusing any of the content of this LibGuide. Linking to any part of this LibGuide does not require our permission. Received 2022 Oct 20; Revised 2023 Jan 7; Accepted 2023 Jan 12; Issue date 2023. This article is made available via the PMC Open Access Subset for unrestricted research re-use and secondary analysis in any form or by any means with acknowledgement of the original source. These permissions are granted for the duration of the World Health Organization (WHO) declaration of COVID-19 as a global pandemic. Online social networks (OSNs) are rapidly growing and have become a huge source of all kinds of global and local news for millions of users.

However, OSNs are a double-edged sword. Although the great advantages they offer such as unlimited easy communication and instant news and information, they can also have many disadvantages and issues. One of their major challenging issues is the spread of fake news. Fake news identification is still a complex unresolved issue. Furthermore, fake news detection on OSNs presents unique characteristics and challenges that make finding a solution anything but trivial. On the other hand, artificial intelligence (AI) approaches are still incapable of overcoming this challenging problem.

To make matters worse, AI techniques such as machine learning and deep learning are leveraged to deceive people by creating and disseminating fake content. Consequently, automatic fake news detection remains a huge challenge, primarily because the content is designed in a way to closely resemble the truth, and it is often hard to determine its veracity by AI... This work aims to provide a comprehensive and systematic review of fake news research as well as a fundamental review of existing approaches used to detect and prevent fake news from spreading via OSNs. We present the research problem and the existing challenges, discuss the state of the art in existing approaches for fake news detection, and point out the future research directions in tackling the challenges. Keywords: Fake news, Disinformation, Misinformation, Information disorder, Online deception, Online social networks Fake news, disinformation and misinformation have become such a scourge that Marcia McNutt, president of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States, is quoted to have said (making an implicit reference to...

Indeed, although online social networks (OSNs), also called social media, have improved the ease with which real-time information is broadcast; its popularity and its massive use have expanded the spread of fake news by... Fake news may refer to the manipulation of information that can be carried out through the production of false information, or the distortion of true information. However, that does not mean that this problem is only created with social media. A long time ago, there were rumors in the traditional media that Elvis was not dead,2 that the Earth was flat,3 that aliens had invaded us,4, etc. A bit about CLICKBAIT. Every time a story is clicked on, money is made.

It doesn't matter if it is accurate or authoritative- YOU must determine those qualities before you share or click. EMOTION: What emoji does it make you want to use? Misinformation, disinformation and propaganda are all designed specifically to elicit a strong emotional response. Check your confirmation bias, approach with informed skepticism. VERIFY: Are there links to other sources to back up the facts? Does the information appear on other news sites?

Can you find the original source of a story or image shared widely on social media? Can it be verified by fact checking websites? AUTHORS: Google the author. What else have they the written? Find information to determine authority. SOURCE: Check the URL.

What is the source's intent? Links to other sources? Reverse Google search images that accompany the article. Verify embedded videos and tweets. Explore this guide to learn more about how to evaluate information sources including fake news and misinformation. Want to learn more?

View our other research skills guides: The media misrepresented President Trump’s call for Members of Congress to be held accountable for inciting sedition by saying that he called for their “execution.” The Democrats and Fake News Media subversively implied that President Trump had issued illegal orders to service members. Every order President Trump has issued has been lawful. It is dangerous for sitting Members of Congress to incite insubordination in the United States’ military, and President Trump called for them to be held accountable. • Democrats released a video calling for service members to disobey their chain of command, and in turn, implied President Trump had issued illegal orders.• President Trump has never issued an illegal order.

Fake News Disinformation Fake News Evaluating Internet

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