How
to
Spot
Fake
News
By Adam Hardy, Jake Swartz, Max Lahn, Patrick Plott, and Sanjeev Hassani
Are your favorite news sources lying to you?
Knowing how to spot fake news is important because it can prevent unreliable or untrue news from spreading, but this article will cover techniques that will help any reader make the distinction between an honest piece of writing and one made to deceive.
The layout of a piece can demonstrate its credibility because spin offs of usually reliable source will not have the exact same layout. This includes differences in fonts, font size, color, background, and more. In some fake news pieces, the author would use subtle differences in spelling to indicate the fake news.
An example is used on a fake news exposé done by the Globe and Mail, where they compared real and fake Twitter accounts. They presented these two variations of their twitter to the reader: (@globeandmail versus @globeandmai1). The subtle difference of the “l” being replaced by a “1” is easily enough to trip up any everyday reader not paying attention to the little things. Some people create fake Twitter accounts of politicians to sabotage that politician's agenda. President Trump’s Twitter account can be an example of people trying to impersonate him. @realDonaldTrump is his real Twitter account while @rea1DonaldTrump and @realDona1dTrump are both fake. These slight differences are ones that you need to be on the lookout for. Another example deals with headlines and layout of certain articles. These two articles that claim to both be an ABC news article can be compared below:
Real ABC News article. Photo courtesy of The Globe and Mail
Fake ABC News article. Photo courtesy of The Globe and Mail
The article on the right is fake because he black circle around the ABC logo looks less professional and gives the article an amatuer look, while the font is clearly too big and different than the left article. Also, the title of the article is jumping to conclusions by misidentifying the shooter. The blue banner on the top of the first article looks more sophisticated than the black banner of the second article. You can notice that a login tab only appears in the first image and not in the second one. Many media websites require an account to access their services, and knowing that technique will help determine the legitimacy of a source.
A third technique to exposing a fake news article, is looking up ABC News on the internet and comparing the article to see if there is a difference in layout. When spotting fake news it is important to know what your personal biases are because it can interfere in determining the legitimacy of an article.
Another important tip is to look out for opinion pieces. When reading something that sounds very far fetched and outlandish, look at the top of the page to see if the article is an opinion piece. In the case of the pictures below, the one on the left does not show opinion tab which demonstrates the author’s deliberate attempt to convey untrue things, thus making it fake news.
An example of an opinion news article and how to spot it. Photos courtesy of The Guardian
Some non fake news tactics to be aware of are misleading headlines commonly referred to as clickbait. Clickbait is when headlines or titles are cleverly worded to draw the reader’s attention to an article, and can at times be misleading. The photo below is an example of a misleading headline.
An article from The Intercept with a misleading title. Photo courtesy of The Intercept
While people may think that Trump killed his sister by reading this headline, they are mistaken. “His” actually refers to the 16 year old in Yemen, and it was his sister that was killed by an air strike. While this is not literally “fake news”, it can easily be misunderstood for something completely different. In this situation, The Intercept uses this tactic to grab the attention of the reader so they will read the article.
More recently the concept of fake news has garnered a strong presence on social media sites such as Twitter and Facebook. These posts can be extremely deceptive due to how easy it is to make a fake post that looks identical to a real post. Websites and apps such as Fake Tweet Generator allow you to design your own fake Tweets from any account of your choosing. The photo below is an example of a fake Tweet made with the app.
Many people interviewed at Providence Day were not swayed by this fake tweet. With Devon being recruited by much larger basketball powerhouses, such as UNC and Kansas, it was comical to think he would take his talents to Winthrop. Other giveaways that this was a fake tweet are the fake users who have liked the photo and the number of retweets on the photo. Devon usually receives between 10-50 retweets so it was unlikely for him to receive 225 retweets.
This tweet was actually tweeted by The Onion and scared many people who saw the tweet. While most people knew that The Onion publishes fake news, there are other ways to spot this as a fake tweet. For example, if gunfire was actually heard inside the Capitol, there would be more reliable news outlets reporting on it.
Photo courtesy of Fake Tweet Generator
Photo courtesy of Twitter
Photo courtesy of BBC News
Although this article was published on BBC News, it is fake. The photo went viral and made appearances on many renowned news sources. The raccoon in this photo was made with taxidermy and staged by professional photographer, Mark Di Stefano.
These techniques are vital to being able to detect and filter the legitimacy and credibility of any form of writing. Knowing how to do this yourself will help increase your confidence in articles, and uphold the credibility of the media, while weeding out those who seek to blemish the reputation of journalism.
The Charger, May 2017
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