6 Fake News Techniques and Simple Tools to Vet Them

Русский

There are different ways that fake news sites fake us out. In GIJN’s latest tutorial, Olga Yurkova, co-founder of Ukrainian fact-checking project StopFake, runs through six main techniques used and offers some simple tools to verify what is true — and what isn’t.

Here are the six fraud scenarios explored:

• Photo manipulation — Easy to check, using  tools such as Google Reverse Search.
• Video tricks — Close examination of the video and finding the original video.
• Twisting Facts — Watch for deceptive headlines, opinions presented as facts, distortions, made-up facts and neglected details.
• Pseudo-Experts, Imagined Experts and Misrepresented Experts — How to check their credentials and their statements.
• Using the Media — Watch for false claims gained by referencing mainstream media.
• Manipulating Data — Look at the methodology, the questions, the clients and more.

Olga Yurkova is co-founder of the Ukrainian fact-checking project StopFake and of Forbidden Facts, an international project to debunk fake news and expose the mechanisms behind it. StopFake covers media sources in 13 languages and conducts research and training. Since 2014, it has verified tens of thousands of articles, photos and videos, and revealed over 3,000 misleading cases.