RAISING DIGITAL KIDS
— by Mike Daugherty
Don’t Believe Everything
That You Read...
W
ikipedia defines fake
news as “a form of news
consisting of deliber-
ate disinformation or hoaxes spread via
traditional news media (print and broad-
cast) or online social media.”
ST. MARY’S
Elementary School
5 Day Full Day Pre-K 3 & 4
Grades K - 8
A STREAM School
STEM + Religion + Art
OPEN HOUSE
Tuesday, April 7, 2020
6pm – 7:30pm • Tours Available
2 St. Mary’s Hill • Lancaster NY 14086
716-683-2112
www.smeschool.com
54 WNY Family March 2020
In the early days of the Internet, fake
news spread like wildfire in the form of
rumors and hoaxes. These stories went
mostly unchecked primarily because
there was not an easy way to check their
validity.
Technology has evolved dramati-
cally since the days of dial-up internet
access. Unfortunately, fake news did not
disappear like the modems of the mid-
90s. Its ability to go viral has steadily
increased with the invention of social
media and the ever-increasing amount
of people connected to the web.
While Internet hoaxes may seem
harmless, the spread of misinformation
is quite alarming. It can polarize percep-
tions and distort people’s ability to make
an informed decision. The scary part
is that some people do not even know
they are being misled. There are several
simple strategies you can use to increase
your knowledge and limit the spread of
misinformation.
Snopes.com
Snopes is one of my most favorite
websites. This is the first place I check
when I hear about something that seems
too outlandish to be true. The team be-
hind Snopes.com has been verifying or
debunking hoaxes, rumors, and internet
mischief since 1994. Staffers investigate
viral stories that spread through web-
sites, emails, and text messages. The
team uses a system of ratings to clas-
sify the stories based on their research.
There are fourteen ratings ranging from
“True,” “False,” “Unproven,” “Misat-
tributed,” and even “Legend.” Along
with the rating, readers can see the un-
derlying reasons and any additional in-
formation behind the story.
For example, I had recently heard
that someone predicted Kobe Bryant’s
helicopter tragedy in a tweet from 2012.
Checking Snopes, I was able to verify
that this did, in fact, happen. The site
not only had a picture of the tweet in
question but had also contacted Twit-
ter and the author of the tweet to verify
authenticity. Snopes staffers outlined the
evidence in a clear, easy to understand
format.
The next time someone forwards
you a viral email, or you hear a crazy ru-
mor, head over to Snopes.com and click
the Hot 50 link at the top. The Hot 50
is a list of trending stories on the web.
TruthorFiction.com and LeadStories.
com are similar to Snopes. They tend
to cover stories across a wide variety of
genres, and both sites use algorithms to
push trending stories to the front page.