Today, Explained - A Fake News Survival Guide

Episode Date: September 8, 2020

As the election draws near, of fake news you must steer clear. For you (and your uncle), this episode is here. Transcript at vox.com/todayexplained Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Send this episode to everyone who sends you disinformation. All right, let's go. 2020, 2020, 2020. It's Today Explained. I'm Sean Ramos from, and I got an uncle who emails me a lot of fake news. Stuff about President Trump, stuff about President Obama, stuff about protesters destroying Catholic churches. Sometimes there are elements of truth in what he sends me,

but you really got to excavate them. And when the stuff he sends me is just infuriatingly fake, I write back. I challenge him to do a little research, to dig, but he never responds. But I don't like giving up. So today we're going to do some digging for all the uncles out there on the show because the election is coming and the commander-in-chief himself is spreading disinformation about Black Lives Matter, about Joe Biden, about Kenosha. It's a good time to brush up on your media literacy. And Day Zhang is here to help. We get questions about fake news quite often, actually. Believe it or not, he's a friendly neighborhood librarian in Seattle. And it was really in 2016, during the presidential election cycle, when we really started getting a

lot of people coming into the library and calling into the library, asking about things that were showing up on their social media accounts, news stories that they would hear that oftentimes sounded very extreme or sensational. And they just weren't sure whether it was credible or not. And so we really put our skills to the test and we decided to create this class called the Fake News Survival Guide. The Fake News Survival Guide. The Fake News Survival Guide. Yes. It's fake, phony, fake. It's all fake news. Fake, fake, disgusting news. So the Fake News Survival Guide

is a course that we teach at the Seattle Public Library. So misinformation, disinformation, memes, how to evaluate what people are seeing on their newsfeeds, on their social media accounts online. How long is the class? Is it like a week long seminar? Is it just like an hour long session? Can we do it right now in this episode? Could you just be the teacher and I'll be the student?

It's a two hour class. Okay, so we have to do a condensed version. Yes, we do. So I won't throw out everything. How does the class start? What do you open with? I actually start out with this picture of Abraham Lincoln and I put up a fake quote that says, never trust a quote you read in a fake news class. That's perfect. So I talk about how I created this meme in like two minutes and with a click of a button, I can spread it online. And it just illustrates how easy it is for us to create content and to share widely to anybody with an internet connection.

Was fake news something we talked about before Donald Trump? Can you remind us? It started, I think, late 2015, early 2016. And a lot of people associated with Donald Trump because he used the term often. And I'm the one that came up with the term. I'm very proud of it. He certainly popularized the term, but it came out in, I think, late 2015 when a news organization started reporting on this prevalence of fake online articles. BuzzFeed uncovered an unlikely

breeding ground for some of the fake news sites. More than 100 websites in one small town in central Macedonia. That's right, Macedonia. And specifically, these websites were popping up that were under the guise of authentic news organizations, and they started pumping out these fake news articles. There's this. FBI agents suspected in Hillary emails leak found dead of apparent murder-suicide from the Denver Guardian. The problem is, there is no such thing as the Denver Guardian. And they started gaining a lot of traction online,

through social media, going viral, to the point where, during the 2016 election cycle, fake news articles were shared more often on Facebook than real news articles. One man behind these hoaxes told the Washington Post, there's nothing you can't write about now that people won't believe. Adding that Trump's campaign manager posted my story about a protester getting paid $3,500 as fact. Like, I made that up. In 2016, the top fake news article shared on Facebook had the headline,

Pope Francis shocks the world, endorses Donald Trump for president. Which didn't happen. It did not happen, no. This was from a quote-unquote fantasy news website. Well, at least they're honest about the fantasy part. Yeah, well, they don't present it up front, but if you went in the About section of their website, they call themselves fantasy news.

We're talking about fake news headlines on Facebook. Is it because Facebook is the chief distributor of fake news? Yes, it's one of the main platforms. I mean, it's the most widely used platform in the world, right? But there's certainly not the only platform. There's Twitter, there's Instagram, there's messaging apps like WhatsApp. My mom, she uses WeChat. It's a very popular messaging service with Asians in particular. I was having a conversation with her and she said that she's encountering a lot of people sharing fake news stories with her. And so it's just kind of everywhere where people are connecting and sharing information, this misinformation and disinformation is showing up. And I like to use more specific terms like misinformation, disinformation, rather than fake news. Fake news is kind of like a hook to get someone in the conversation and start talking

about it. But everyone kind of has a different conception of what fake news is and a different definition. And a lot of times it's politicized, but I really encourage people to drill down a little deeper and describe what they're actually seeing. Is this propaganda? Is this misinformation? Is it just like a headline that doesn't match the content? Is it lazy reporting? Or is it something that's actually designed to deceive for a political purpose or monetary purpose? So there's just such a deeper conversation to be had and just the term fake news doesn't quite capture it all. Yeah. I mean, that feels like a huge lesson right there. Fake news is some catchphrase that Donald Trump popularized, but this is life or death stuff. This disinformation, misinformation that spreads

online. You know, WhatsApp disinformation can lead to Muslims being killed in Sri Lanka. QAnon conspiracy theories can lead to a guy walking into a pizza restaurant in DC in pursuit of an imaginary pedophile ring, and then he opens fire. Absolutely. Conspiracy theories aren't new, but they're gaining more and more traction. And a lot of it is, frankly, these social media platforms pushing people towards more and more extreme content. I use the example of this professor that I was talking to.

His son is really into like space and science. And so they were watching a YouTube video from the International Space Station. And the very next video that auto-populated was a video about flat earth theory and pushing that conspiracy. So you can be watching very legitimate, credible information, and yet the algorithms are pushing you towards more and more extreme content. This happens to everybody because it's in people's financial interest to get you to click and to get you to engage, to get you to buy and to get you to buy in to the information they're pushing.

And oftentimes they really do know your triggers. They really do understand that if you're from a certain political bent, then you're going to react or you're going to accept information from a certain point of view more easily and you're not going to question. And so I really try to instill this idea that we need to stop, we need to investigate, and we need to question our own biases before we share. That's because you're a librarian, and librarians are heroes. No, but I try. I appreciate that. After the break, Day teaches us and our uncles how to combat disinformation online. Thank you. digital photo frame by Wirecutter. Aura frames make it easy to share unlimited photos and videos directly from your phone to the frame. When you give an aura frame as a gift, you can personalize it, you can preload it

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for the holidays. Terms and conditions do apply. Okay, getting back to your fake news survival guide, what tips do you give people to not just combat fake news they find online, but the stuff in, you know, chats and emails and text chains and all that stuff? So I give three quick tips. Number one, read, listen, watch critically before sharing. Number two, check the source. Number three, check the support. Hey, hey, hey! Silencio!

This is a library, not a yapatorium! Okay, three essential tips. Engage very critically with what you're reading. Check sources and then check supports. Like who's being quoted, where the information's coming from, etc. Exactly. So they did a study in 2016 that revealed 59% of Twitter links were shared without clicking through. People were encountering these headlines that really grabbed them emotionally and they felt like they had to share with all their followers or their friends.

And they actually didn't read the article. So the best thing we can do is to actually click through, read it in full, ask ourselves, does this make sense? Has a fact-checking website done a report on this story? What are some fact-checking sites for people out there who aren't familiar? For political content, I really like PolitiFact, but my all-time favorite is Snopes. Classic. Yeah, they have a long history of debunking myths, conspiracy theories, even gossip. And what I love about Snopes is they show all their homework right just like any good journalist or fact checking website would they lay out the claim they rate it but then they show you exactly where this story came from what's the support behind it whether there is any support so they really show you every step that they took to rate this claim okay so that's how to engage a little more critically. What about checking the source?

How do regular people who are just reading the news casually on Facebook of all places check sources? Right. The key is to not engage on Facebook. It's to actually go to where's the article hosted? Who has written the article? What do you know about this author? Have they written other articles? Does it even have an author listed? Exactly. If they don't, that could be a red flag. And if they do list the author, oftentimes they'll give kind of a bio of where the author has worked and other publications they've written for and what other articles they've posted. Where did this journalist get training?

Who have they worked for? Who is the publisher? Do they have an established reputation? Did they just show up in the last few years or are they established news organization? Follow the trail of breadcrumbs and follow where the information is coming from. And then the third tip you give people is to check the support for the article. What does that mean?

So what I mean by support is what evidence do they give? Oftentimes they'll quote an expert. And in that case, you can check who is this person? Are they authoritative? Do they actually have a degree? And if they're listing quotes, like, for example, from a press conference, can you actually find a video or a transcript of that press conference?

Did this person actually say that? And so we really have to create a culture of conscious consumption skeptical consumption and skeptical sharing are there red flags that can make this easier are there things that people can look out for that are sort of signs that you might be encountering some disinformation online? Yes. So some red flags would be the headline is very sensational or politically charged. It may use caps or excessive punctuation. The language might be extreme or opinionated. If it's super easy to share, if it's designed for easy sharing, such as a meme. I'm super, super skeptical of memes and I almost never share them just because it's just an image and anybody could

have created it. It's almost impossible to trace where it began. And another thing I talk about is a.co domain. Like.com without the M? Exactly. So.cos are newer to the game. They've been around for only about 10 years. It's a lot easier and a lot cheaper to get a.co domain. I use the example of abcnews.com.co, which was one of the biggest fake news websites in 2016. abcnews.com.co. It's got like two suffixes. Right. This website was masquerading as ABC News. And finally, if it contains a claim that it has a secret, the media, the government, big business, whatever, doesn't want you to know about and that they're the only one who has access to this information.

What the mainstream media was afraid to tell you about the news this week. The media does not want you to know the shocking thing that Barack Obama said about Donald Trump back in 1991. We'll reveal that in a moment. You guys have always asked me, well, Steve, what's your source on this? And I can't send you to a link because it's my own proprietary work with the CDC's actual data. That is a big red flag. And it essentially is them saying, you can't fact check me. No one else has this. And you should trust me. I actually just recently read that Facebook

is going to start paying more attention and putting more eyes on articles that get a ton of attention very quickly. And that might be a way to combat the spread of disinformation, especially about this pandemic that we're all going through right now. And when I heard that news or read that news,

I kind of thought, oh, they weren't doing that already? Right. Yeah, Facebook has tried a number of things, like partnering with fact-checkers and things like that. But it's clear now that we didn't do enough to prevent these tools from being used for harm as well. And that goes for fake news, for foreign interference in elections and hate speech, as well. And that goes for fake news, for foreign interference in elections

and hate speech, as well as developers and data privacy. We didn't take a broad enough view of our responsibility. And that was a big mistake. And it was my mistake. And I'm sorry. But so far, the track record isn't great. And I do worry that we're going to get intellectually lazy or just rely on technology or rely on this company or that company to solve this problem for us. You know, I kind of use the example of email spam, right? It's been around forever and we still get it in our inbox. And even though we have spam filters that get better and better at detecting it, the spammers get better and better

at getting around those filters. And so it's always gonna be this issue where we're trying to stay on top of it, but there's just so much money and so much incentive in fooling people. And so at the end of the day, I really try to teach this idea of personal, conscious consumption. And when I share, I try to check every bit of the article. And I can't do

that with every article I read. And so I might only share one article a day or one every couple days. but I really try to do my homework if I'm sharing something because that's my responsibility. I don't want to be pushing something fake out there. And what about when that doesn't work? What about when you write to your uncle and you say, hey, man, I'm not sure about the sources in the article you sent me. In fact, you know, the article doesn't have any sources.

Have you considered looking into this article or this writer who seems to be an expert on the subject? And then, you know, your uncle just stonewalls you and doesn't say anything. Well, sure. Of course, there's plenty of people who have made their minds up already and they're not open to new information. And in those cases, you kind of have to just accept that that's where they are. But at the same time, I would say, you know, you have a relationship with your uncle. And over time, you know, trust is a two-way street and respect is a two-way street. So as long as we have those in place, I really think there is opportunity for influence and for connection. There's going to be times where someone is immovable.

But I think, you know, if we create a culture of dialogue and a culture of not putting someone down for their views, but trying to understand and then sharing your own views and coming together and being like, hey, so why do you believe that? Oh, here's what I believe and here's why. Then we can start, you know, sharing the common ground and finding that common ground and at the same time opening each other's eyes. Great. And if that doesn't work, we can maybe send them your fake news survival guide. Sure. Any resource can potentially help, right?

Day Zhang is a librarian at the Seattle Public Library. You can find a link to his fake news survival guide as a PDF in today's show transcript. Those are at vox.com slash today explained. We'll also share it for you on Twitter. Our Twitter is today underscore explained. Stay safe. Stay skeptical.