Article by E&D
People create and distribute fake news for a variety of reasons, from looking to obtain commercial and political gains to simply wishing to attract attention. Following the Loughborough University’s Online Civic Culture Centre, 42.8% of news sharers engage in sharing inaccurate or fake news. What is the common reason? It is to influence what people think. To convince others to their own point of view and support it with ‘pseudo facts’.
Meanwhile, the invented, false, exaggerated, or distorted information we are exposed to impact our way of seeing the world. They will prevent us from making the best decisions as we will not have all the facts as for what is real and what is not. To try to minimalise manipulation and impact of fake news on the Internet, many companies are trying to introduce tools to combat fake news on the Web. Using those tools each of us can contribute to protecting ourselves and others from negative impact of fake news. So how can you be a part of the solution?
- Be critical – don’t believe everything you see online.
- Investigate – always think
- who is sharing the information, can you trust the source, is he/she/they an expert?
- Is there any credible evidence?
iii. What are other sources saying and what is the real context of the news?
- If you define that the information/page/post is indeed a fake or misleading, use existing reporting tools to help protect others as well as social media or other online platforms from fake news.
How to do it? Many sites offer an easy possibility to report fake news. I.e.
- Report fake news on Facebook:
- Click the three dots in the upper right-hand corner of the post you want to report.
- From the drop-down menu that will appear choose ‘Find Support or Report Post’.
- Facebook will propose you a list of options why you wish to report the post. Choose the one that describes the issue and click Next.
- Report fake news on Google:
- Take a screenshot of the fake news and save it.
- On the Google search side scroll till the end and click ‘Send feedback’ at the end of the page.
- In the dialog box that will appear attach the screenshot and describe why you believe the site or article should be removed.
- Click send.
- Report fake news on LinkedIn:
- Click the …More icon in the right corner of the post on your LinkedIn homepage.
- Select Report this post.
- Select the reason from the ‘Why are you reporting this?’ pop-up window and follow the on-screen instructions.
- Click Submit to proceed with reporting the post, or Back to review your options.
- Twitter:
- As per August 2021 Twitter is testing a new tool for reporting misleading information. For now, the function is being tested in USA, South Africa and Australia.
For any other site look for ‘how to report fake news NAME OF THE SITE/MEDIA PLATFORM’. Remember that in many cases when no dedicated tools for reporting fake news exists you can use the ‘Report SPAM’ function.