Published: December 3, 2020; Updated: December 3, 2020
By Rebekah Friedman, [email protected], 803-576-7270
If you have ever found a story, image or video online and thought to yourself, “There is no way this can be real”, there is a good chance that you are right. Fake news is a growing threat and advances in technology are making it difficult to locate.
In November, two researchers from the College of Information and Communications sat down for “Can You Spot Fake News”, a discussion of what it is, how it works and what can be done to resolve it.
Nicole Cooke is the Augusta Baker Chair at the School of Information Science and author of Fake news and alternative facts: Information literacy in a post-truth era. Last spring, she gave a postgraduate course in fake news, and in the spring of 2021, she will teach a news literacy class open to all UofSC graduate students.
Denetra Walker, a doctoral student at the School of Journalism and Mass Communication, has studied the spread of fake news on social media and is exploring how journalists are working to combat it.
Here are seven main conclusions from the conversation:
1. Know the language.
“Fake news is the latest nickname we apply to disinformation and disinformation,” says Cooke.
Misinformation is false information that is spread, but not necessarily on purpose – think of misleading headlines or typos that change the context of the stories. Disinformation, on the other hand, is created on purpose to deceive and deceive. This can include deepfakes – videos created with sophisticated artificial intelligence – and superficial, videos that are real but misrepresented.
Then there is misinformation – a more recent term for information that is meant to be harmful, such as doxing and revenge porn. “This is information that can really be dangerous,” says Cooke.
2. Fake news is not new.
It may seem that “fake news” entered the lexicon in 2016, but Cooke says it has been around for much longer than that – already in the late 19th century. And although the terminology varies, the practice of presenting false information as news has remained a constant.
“The difference now is this idea of digital media and the speed with which information circulates,” she says.
3. Sometimes there is a bottom of truth.
False news is usually based, at least partially, on reality, and mixing truth with lies is what makes false or misleading stories so compelling.
“This misinformation is often a little brighter,” says Walker.
Cooke agrees: “There is always some kind of plausibility or feasibility, and that is what makes it difficult to overcome the mistake, as I call it. She adds that removing the layers can help reveal the pieces of misinformation and misinformation.
4 Repetition makes combat more difficult.
Cooke studies a phenomenon known as repetition theory – the idea that the more a lie is repeated, the more likely it is that people will believe it, sometimes even unconsciously. And, once people buy the lie, changing your mind is a challenge.
5. Skepticism is healthy.
In 2018, actor Jordan Peele released an altered video of President Barack Obama to raise awareness of deepfake technology. The compelling video made headlines, but for viewers familiar with Obama’s mannerisms, something seemed … strange.
“Knowing this broader context would give you an instinctive feeling,” says Cooke. “If you don’t have that greater knowledge, you won’t be questioning it. We want people to have a healthy level of skepticism and go a little deeper ”.
6. It became more difficult to locate him.
In the early days of the Internet, identifying a suspicious website was easy – bad design was a dead revelation, and users were told that URLs ending in “.edu” or “.org” were more reliable than “.com ”. But now, high quality web content can be created in a matter of seconds.
The rise of the content producer – and the seemingly infinite content he creates – contributed to another problem: filter bubbles.
“You can select the information you’re seeing so carefully that you don’t really need to see the information you disagree with,” says Cooke. “It starts to move towards what we call the decay of the truth, because it is so carefully organized that you are missing out on a lot more.”
7 What can you do.
The first step, says Cooke, is to be aware of where you are getting your information from and ask if it is coming out of your bubble. Your students create a 24-hour news record as a way to start this conversation.
From there, two techniques can help to verify the information: triangulation and lateral reading. Triangulation means confirming a story on at least three news sources. Side reading involves opening new tabs in your browser to investigate sites or claims as you find them.
To avoid inadvertent disclosure of false information, Cooke recommends postponing the post until you are sure it is real.
The responsibility also falls on educators to teach students valuable literacy skills.
“We need to provide students with the kind of knowledge to be able to identify it, because maybe they can plant a seed with a family member or friend or maybe they can stop spreading it unintentionally,” says Walker.
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Topics: Faculty, Faculty of Information and Communications