Article by Arad Development Centre (CDA)
Fake news describes articles or posts that appear to be real, but that contain intentional misinformation.Their purpose is to attract the public, to influence people in making certain decisions, to mislead them in order to obtain financial income from advertising.
Fake news generator are motivated by financial incentives, advertising revenue generated by sensational stories, political goals, influence opinion for or against a party, a candidate, a group, or personal reasons.
False stories are designed to look as real as possible, they can appear as posts on different social networks, they are distributed in different formats and accounts, which makes it difficult to differentiate between true and false stories. The impact of false news is significant, it can undermine trust in various state institutions, it can provoke conflicts between different social groups, it can encourage division and affect social trust.
How can we prevent the spread of misinformation?
It is very easy to be fooled! In order not to consciously spread false news, we must be careful what kind of information we distribute (information that seems too good or too bad to be true) and what kind of reactions that information would provoke. Disinformation depends on the people who I believe and spread it. An easy way to check is to search the internet to see if more reliable sources are talking about it.
It is not always easy to distinguish truth from fiction, so we will suggest below some tips in recognizing fake news:
Critical attitude
Critical attitude towards the media refers to the abilities to analyze, compare and select media messages, to identify the purpose of different messages, to recognize misleading, false and incomplete information.
Consultation of sources
We need to find out if the news comes from a reliable source to see if it contains contact details, names and addresses. Serious portals and platforms always provide transparent information.
Finding the context
Find out in what context the news is played, is it true news, is it a pamphlet or a fake news. View in general the other news of the portal to see the types of news played.
Text analysis
We carry out a summary and critical research on: the dubious content, the tone of the news is exaggerated and the details are brief, the unilateral perspective on the situation, if reliable sources are cited, if mistakes occur.
Image verification
Images have a strong impact and are easy to manipulate. An internet search for that image can tell us if the image was used in another context. If the image appears frequently on frivolous sites, for example, then it can be a false news clue.
Comparison of details
If we have doubts about the information we can look for another official source of information, for example the official sites of different institutions, a well-known news portal. A comparison of text and images helps to identify false news.
False news reporting
Report the fake news to the social media platform where you found it and talk to the person who spreads it, he probably did it unintentionally.