Mike Caulfield in his site infodemic.blog explains the ways we can all make sure the sources we are getting information from are trust-worthy. He is concerned about the spread of misinformation about the coronavirus. While the corona virus is certainly a hot topic right now, I think Caulfield’s techniques are useful for every day information checking on all topics! It’s important today, in the era of easy access to information, to be able to discern what information is truthful, and what is not.
He writes about hovering. By hovering he means checking the information on the individual who you are receiving the information from. He questions he advises to ask is whether the source is credible, and whether we need to further fact-check their claims or not. If it’s the twitter account of an individual, for example, we may look at their professional credentials. If it’s a news outlet, the respectability and reported accuracy and factuality of said outlet.
Connected to this last bit is the use of Wikipedia. Caulfield writes, “Just add Wikipedia.” Let’s say we look at someone’s twitter information, and we find out they work for a particular news outlet, of which we know nothing. In that case searching it on Wikipedia might let us know about their reliability and validity.
Caulfield precedes then illustrating what to do in the case we search the source and do not trust it. He writes a post titled “News search cross-check.” instructs to search for other articles, from other news sources we deem reliable, about the same topic. Obviously if we don’t fin anything, it’s bad news.
Sometimes, Caulfield writes in another post, the original source might be reliable, but the sharing source might not. The sharing source can re-frame what the original source has said, and change it in a way that it spreads mis-information. There are a couple of ways one can solve this problem. One is of course “News search cross-check”. The other is going to the original source, if that one is trustworthy. Caulfield in his example, underlines a specific technique. If there is a particular element within the story, as said by the sharing source, which appears suspicious, we can search its key word in the webpage of the original source, and see what is said about it. This way, we can prove if the claims of the sharing source are true.
I think Caulfield’s advice is precious! In order to be responsible and dutiful citizens we must understand the world around us. To do so, we have to be able to discern true information from false claims. We need to make choices for ourselves that protect us and our environment, in the present and future! We need the right information to do it! Check out infodemic.blog for in-depth explaining!
JacquelineFilmStudent 