With the US presidential election coming up next month, newsrooms are bracing themselves for a torrent of misinformation in the run up to, throughout, and in the aftermath of, the event.
As The Washington Post reported in 2018, lies spread faster than truth. Social media especially has become a breeding ground for circulating false and inaccurate information.
Associate professor of social psychology at Mississippi State University, H. Colleen Sinclair, provides her top ten tips on IJNet to identify misinformation roaming the web. A basic but crucial way to do this is simply by checking the source of an article before sharing it on social media. Not sure how? She recommends websites like The Media Bias/Fact Check.
"When you share something, social media and search-engine algorithms count your sharing as a vote for the overall site’s credibility. So don’t help misinformation sites take advantage of your reputation as a cautious and careful sharer of reliable information," it reads.
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