False context is when someone uses a blend of truth and false information at the same time. It is often times used to get the readers attention and make them want to read an article. In the age of the internet, many websites will use false context like the photo on the left. Once you see someone who is still alive next to a headline about death, you naturally want to click on it to see if that person in the photo is still alive or not. However, when you click on it their name won't be on the list (Fake News, Wikipedia).

With today's ungoing tragic events, there has been a lot of false context going around on social media. On the right there is a video where the claim is that there is a little girl confronting a Russian Soilder in Ukraine. However, while Russia is in fact currently invading Ukraine, the video was taken out of context. This video is actually from 2012 in which it shows an 11 year old girl confronting an Israeli soilder after her older sibling was arrested (Sardarizadeh and Devlin, 2022).

In addition to the previous example, pictured on the left is another tweet with more false context information. While this photo was actually taken in Ukraine, the context of the photo was wrong. One might think that these are two kids watching the soilders leaving their town to defend against the Russian invasion based on current events and the tweet. Unfortunately, this photo was actually taken in 2016 by a photographer who was eventually kicked out of the Ukrainian defence ministry for allegations of staging combat photos (Sardarizadeh and Devlin, 2022).

Now that you are aware of false context information and have seen some examples of how it has been used, how can you recongnize it and stop the spread? When seeing an article or social media post with a photo or a quote, do an image search or google the quote to find out the original meaning and context. To stop the spread of false context information, if you see a post that you suspect may fall into the category of false context information, do not share it as others may not be aware.