Keep Fake News Out

[Lamb]

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/...e-news-out-your-head?utm_source=pocket-newtab

This is a great article and hits a lot of major points about what's happening with "news" today online!

The main segments of the article are:
Be skeptical of everything
Consider the source
Google is not a god
Slow down
Where is everybody else?
Understand the difference between opinion and news
Check the URL carefully
Don’t litter
Reduce the flow
Remember who you are

"FINAL THOUGHTS ON THE WAR FOR YOUR THOUGHTS

Strive to make critical thinking your automatic reaction to online encounters with news and other information. This won’t make you invulnerable and incapable of making missteps, of course.

Do not forget for one second that you are under constant threat of intellectual assault from countless throngs of deluded believers pushing endless streams of baloney and madness. There also are countless profit-motivated, agenda-driven, and just plain dishonest companies and people who show up and work hard every day with the aim of fooling you for their own gain. Defend your mind."

 

[tango]

This reminds me of the time The Onion posted an article about a Chinese couple expecting octuplets who, under China's (then) strict one-child policy, had been given 24 hours to decide which one to keep. The other seven were scheduled to be put to death. From what I recall a number of news outlets didn't clock that it was from The Onion and republished it, triggering some evangelical groups to hold overnight prayer vigils for the seven who weren't selected to live.

Every once in a while a site like The Onion or the Babylon Bee gets taken seriously, causing much egg on many faces among the allegedly more serious news outlets.

I read another story a while back about a teacher who set up a web site about a mythical creature called a tree octopus, complete with scientific descriptions of the animal, its life cycle, feeding patterns, mating habits and the like. Then the teacher gave their class an assignment to find out about the tree octopus. Needless to say they stumbled upon the fake site and wrote their essays about the tree octopus, but apparently then refused to believe the teacher's assertion that the site they found was fake. The lesson was supposed to be about not believing everything you read on the internet but the class struggled to believe the teacher's insistence that the information they found on the internet wasn't real.