Misinformation, disinformation and outright propaganda run rampant on social media.
To spot false or misleading posts before sharing them, you must develop media literacy, according to Daniel Boone Regional Library public service librarian Seth Smith. Smith gave a virtual presentation on the topic Thursday.
“We’re not telling you where or how to get your news in this presentation — we’re point out the pitfalls social media can present if you use it as your news source,” he said.
Smith made the point that Americans spend huge amounts of time online devouring media of all types: memes, articles, “listicles,” videos and more.
“It’s only increased this year as most peoples’ lives have gone entirely online,” he said.
According to a 2019 survey by Pew Research, one in five American adults get their political news primarily through social media. That’s not an inherently bad thing, Smith said, but it carries risks.
Though sites such as Facebook and Twitter have implemented automated fact-checking, those systems aren’t 100 percent reliable and don’t catch every falsehood posted on the sites. Often, users share posts without verifying them, leading to opinions, satire and disinformation (false information deliberately designed to mislead) being passed around as fact.
Additionally, social media and search tools such as Google monitor what users search for and view, and then use algorithms to serve up similar content. In practice, that means that clicking on one misleading video on YouTube could lead to being recommended a whole series of similarly misleading and increasingly extreme videos on the same or related topics.
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Smith suggested several practices to help avoid being misled and spreading misinformation on the internet.
Consider the information’s source, if one is linked or listed. Click through the links and look for the website’s “About” page, mission statement and/or disclaimer. Many satirical sites might look legitimate at first glance, but their about page gives the game away.
“These websites have caused a lot of damage and a lot of confusion to people,” Smith said.
If the site lacks any information about its purpose or who runs it, that’s another red flag.
Glancing over other headlines and articles on the website can also be helpful — if you spot clearly fictional headlines, odds are the whole site isn’t a reliable source of news.
Not all unreliable sites present completely false information, however — some present true information with a strong bias, or mix opinion with news. Smith suggested checking out mediabiaschart.com, which evaluates news sources both on their neutrality and their reliability. For example, the notorious tabloid National Enquirer is rated as being fairly politically neutral but also full of fabricated and inaccurate information.
If you’re still not sure, you can fact-check individual articles and claims at sites including the Poynter Institute, Snopes, Politicfact and Factcheck.org — all of which, Smith said, are reliable and do not have a strong political bias.
Check the author. Are they a reputable journalist with verifiable credentials, or an anonymous blogger?
Look out for emotionally manipulative and “clickbait-y” headlines. Many sites try to drive shares and clicks by provoking strong emotional reactions in viewers, like outrage or fear, Smith said. A headline only tells part of the story, so reading the rest of the article can also reveal additional context or contrasting viewpoints.
“The more outrageous a headline is, the more clicks it’s going to draw and the more money the news agencies are going to make,” he added.
Even relatively reliable and mainstream news sources sometimes publish headlines that don’t tell the whole story. Smith gave the example of a 2014 headline from CNN which read “Ebola in the air? A nightmare that could happen.” Someone who read the rest of the article would find that the scientists interviewed said there was only a small chance Ebola would become airborne.
If the article sites sources — which a reliable article ought to — make sure those sources are themselves reliable and actually say what the article claims they do. If the source is a scientific study, check whether it was printed in a reliable, peer-reviewed journal, Smith said. Some journals allow anyone to print a study, while other subject studies to the peer-review process, in which they’re evaluated by other experts in the field for credibility before printing.
Check when the information was first published. An old story about an approaching natural disaster might’ve been accurate when it was first published a decade ago, but if posted without context or presented as new news it could mislead people.
“I’ve also fallen into this trap,” Smith said. “Re-posting old news stories on Facebook and other social media is easy to do.”
Be on the lookout for digital manipulation. Videos may be edited deceptively to cut out important context or splice together a message the speaker never intended to convey. Programs such as Photoshop allow people to alter or create entirely fake images with ease, and sophisticated new technology (nicknamed “deepfakes”) even makes it possible to swap people’s faces in videos.
Check your own biases. Smith introduced the concept of “confirmation bias” — that’s peoples’ tendency to embrace information that supports their preexisting beliefs and reject information that contradicts those beliefs. Just because information in an article reflects poorly on a politician that you dislike doesn’t mean the article’s automatically true — it’s still worth double-checking its accuracy before you share it.
Smith said people are welcome to call any of DBRL’s libraries with questions about whether a particular source or claim is reliable. Several librarians in the DBRL system have received media literacy training.
“As librarians, we feel like we’re on front lines of assisting patrons with news-literacy education,” he said. “I feel we’re on the front lines of upholding democracy in some ways.”
Thursday’s presentation was co-hosted with the League of Women Voters of Columbia and Boone County and supported by a grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services and the Missouri State Library.
For further reading, check out “True Or False: A CIA Analyst’s Guide to Spotting Fake News” by Cindy Otis or “Keep Calm and Log On: Your Handbook for Surviving the Digital Revolution” by Gillian Andrews at Callaway County or Holts Summit Public Library. Or, check out the free “Very Verified” online course on media literacy at verified.ed-era.com.
