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What is verification?
What you will learn in this lesson
What you will learn in this lesson
- What is Verification and News?
- Fact-checkers, The Fighter of Fake News
- 3 Steps in Verifying
- Social Medias vs Fake News
Angela loves fruits. One day, she went to a fruit market and bought some fresh food home.
Angela loves fruits. One day, she went to a fruit market and bought some fresh food home.
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She posted a picture of her eating persimmons and bananas on Facebook. A few minutes later, she received a message from her friend saying she needs to go to the hospital, along with a shared post.
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"Weird", thought Angela. "I am eating a banana after persimmon and I'm feeling alright. Let me do a verification."
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After doing some verification, Angela discovered that the information is false and had even caused a scare in Taiwan! It was rated false by Taiwan FactCheck Center.
Angela then proceeded to tell her friend and even reported the forwarded message. Now, at least her friend and maybe a few other people wouldn't be scared for nothing anymore.
What is verification?
What is verification?
Verification means checking information so you can determine if it is fact, false information, an opinion or a rumour.
Verification means checking information so you can determine if it is fact, false information, an opinion or a rumour.
Verification helps you from being misled by untrue information and prevents you from sharing and spreading false news to other people.
Verification helps you from being misled by untrue information and prevents you from sharing and spreading false news to other people.
False information often harms people, scares them or defames them.
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But, what is news?
But, what is news?
Before we go any further, let's do a sorting game. Drag and drop the items into the categories provided.
Instead of professionally generated content, people have started to consider social media/newsfeed, private messaging, podcast or even something heard from family members or friends as news.
If a piece of information is not a professionally generated content, you need to be mindful that it could just be people's opinion and not a fact. This is when verification needs to happen.
Nowadays, it is essential for you as a good digital citizen to stay well-informed about current events, not just journalists and news organisations.
Verification helps you to identify reliable information from mass amount of information.
In an environment where anybody can create and share information online, verifying the content we consume and share is important for building healthy online communities and building a reputation of trust in the online world.
Fact-checkers: The fighter of fake news
Fact-checkers: The fighter of fake news
Click on each book title to learn more about fact-checkers below.
3 steps in verifying
3 steps in verifying
Let's play a game! Run to the correct answer zone while avoiding the aliens. Good luck!
Credit Image: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)
Majority of you would have gotten it all correct. However, those false answers in the previous game was actually taken from user-generated news. Before it was debunked, people actually believed it.
That is why it is very important to seek out trust-worthy information sources such as the WHO or local Ministries of Health.
From the examples you have seen before, it is clear that you can easily come across false news and stories as you surf the internet.
As a good digital citizen, it is your responsibility to identify and report false news if necessary. You must make sure that you do not become a person that spreads false news!
How do you do that? By verifying the news you consume yourself! Click on the key icon to know more about the 3 steps.
Let's do some activities!
Let's do some activities!
You received this image that has been shared on social medias sites multiple times with text identifying the creature as a "pigfish" or a "wild hogfish".
After following the lessons, your first instinct should be to verify. Another thing that you can do besides following the 3 steps is to visit fact-checker websites such as sebenarnya.my and Snopes.
Social media vs Fake news
Social media vs Fake news
Facebook is committed to fighting the spread of false news. Technology and human review are both used to remove fake accounts, promote news literacy and disrupt the financial incentives of spammers. Sometimes, Facebook also works with 3rd party fact-checkers.
Identifying false news: Facebook identify news that may be false using signs like feedback from people on Facebook. Fact-checkers may also identify stories to review on their own
Reviewing stories: Fact-checkers will review stories, check their facts, and rate their accuracy
Showing false stories lower in News Feed: If a fact-checker rates a story as false, it will appear lower in News Feed. This significantly reduces the number of people who see it
Taking action against repeat offenders: Pages and websites that repeatedly share false news will see their distribution reduced and their ability to advertise removed
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Reporting false news on Facebook is easy.
1. Look at a post
2. Click option on the top right corner of the post - either an arrow of the 3 dots
3. Choose the option 'Find Support or Report Post'. Click 'False News'
The other thing to look at when viewing information is whether a post is organic or an Ad from a business. Organic means the post has been posted for free and not a paid advertisement.
When a post has 'sponsored’ at the top that means whomever posted it has paid to do so and it also means the post has passed through additional review to ensure it isn’t false information.
This is also the same for Instagram.
To report a false post, you can do so by clicking the three dots on the top right.
Double check the facts when you are not sure, especially if it is forwarded messages.
This is because not knowing the source is a good signal to make the effort to verify information.
For Whatssap, as you can see on the picture, the message indicates whether the message has been forwarded.
Before you finish...
Before you finish...
In the space below, can you help Angela to be sure she do not share false news?
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