Fake News
This section examines the concept of Fake News, Deepfakes and how to spot them.
In recent years, ‘Fake News’ has come to mean any news story that is proved factually incorrect, to a story that someone simply doesn’t agree with. So, if you come across an accusation of fake news or want to check a news item that doesn't seem right to you, how do you ‘fact check’ a news story?
Look carefully at the information you have found, does it raise any suspicions for you? Ask yourself some questions:
Q – Does the story make sense? Is it likely given your previous knowledge of the subject? If anything seems ‘off’ to you, then dive deeper!
Q – Are there any spelling or grammar mistakes in it? Reliable information has been through an editorial process where mistakes are corrected before publishing.
Q – Where did you find the information? If it was via social media, look at the account owner, have they posted other stories that seem suspicious? Do they have many followers? Is their handle nonsense letters and numbers? This could be a sign of a bot.
Q - Does the author have known political affiliations? Are they being funded by a commercial enterprise or political organisation?
Q – Can you find confirmation of the information through trusted sources, e.g. the BBC, the UN, Reuters, academic databases, or fact checking websites?
Q – Was the story/image posted recently or is it from some time ago? Bots can be programmed to post at any time to revive old and debunked claims/stories.
There are various methods for spotting fake news. Many correlate with the methods used to evaluate other sources such as YouTube videos, social media, or websites. See the previous section on How to Evaluate Information.
Here is the advice from the International Federation of Library Associations (IFLA):
Here is the advice of the experts at the BBC:
Imagine that you have found this article on a website.
It claims that the Earth is hollow.
How do you 'fact check' it?
Reproduced from the Fordham University Lib Guide, with content from Indiana University East Lib Guide.
Deepfakes can be videos, audio recordings, or images that have been altered or created digitally, often with AI tools. They are then posted on the internet or spread through social media to distort news stories, political campaigns, or other information.
More recently, they have advanced to the degree that it is extremely hard to distinguish between the real thing and a deepfake. This makes it much more difficult when deciding to use videos, images, or audio recordings in your assignments.
For some real-world examples of deepfakes, see this collection of BBC articles on the subject.
For some tips on how to avoid deepfakes, see the section on evaluating YouTube.
See also, this excellent video with tips on how to spot a deepfake: