STEP TWO: HOW TO CHECK OUT A LINK

Once you’ve decided to look more deeply at a story online, it’s time to figure out where and
when it comes from. Internet news can work like a game of telephone: every time somebody
reposts or rewrites something, there’s a chance that important details will get lost.

The first step in that process is finding the date of the original story — which is one of the
most helpful pieces of information you can get. If the story’s being shared in a Facebook post
or a tweet, click on the post and find its date, otherwise known as the timestamp. You should
also look for the source of the relevant information. Sometimes a news story will explicitly
cite its sources, whether that’s by making clear that the author performed firsthand research
and interviews, or by linking to a press release or another news outlet. If it’s the latter, just
click through to see where the information is coming from, and make sure to check the
timestamp on that as well.

Sometimes, though, it’s unclear where news originated — a story might print an
inflammatory quote without saying where or when it’s from, or a Twitter account might
share a photo with a description that might be wrong. In those cases, do a quick search for
more coverage and original sourcing, generally using a search engine like Bing,
DuckDuckGo, or Google.

For more specific search tips, here are some of the strategies I use.

Looking Deeper
Check the verification
Look for names and keywords
Find survey and infographic sources
Search for quotes
Identify photos and videos
Consider how time-sensitive the story is
See if an old story is still accurate

WHY TIMESTAMPS MATTER

There’s a term called “context collapse” that’s very useful when discussing internet news. Popularized by
scholar danah boyd, it describes how the internet “flattens multiple audiences into one” — if you’re
browsing Twitter, for example, an offhand comment from your friend sits right alongside a statement
from the president of the United States. Internet news suffers from its own variation of context collapse:
no matter how far away or long ago a story happened, it can sound like it’s happening right now, in your
neighborhood.

This can go horribly awry. In January 2019, a local TV station said law enforcement was looking for a
human trafficking suspect around Waco, Texas. A radio station employee summarized the story with a
more urgent headline — “Suspected Human Trafficker, Child Predator May Be in Our Area” — and
posted it on Facebook.

The writer wanted to raise local awareness about a criminal on the loose. Instead, as Slate author Will
Oremus explains, his story got out of control. It was shared hundreds of thousands of times across the
country, likely by users who thought “our area” referred to their town instead of Texas. The suspect was
apprehended soon after, and the article was updated. But people kept sharing the original post for weeks,
because it sounded scary and urgent — apparently, too urgent to check and see if the danger was gone.

STEP THREE: HOW TO FIND THE CONTEXT

Some online disinformation is blatantly fake or misleading. But other stories are more subtly
wrong. They might omit important details, blow small controversies out of proportion, or use
legitimate news to attract people before feeding them bad information.

The key here is looking for gaps in a story, or mismatches between a story’s claims and its
actual source material. These might be honest mistakes — like accounts sharing satirical
news without realizing it. Or they might be a deliberate attempt to fool people.

There’s no step-by-step guide for understanding a story’s full context. But there are a few
principles you can keep in mind.

Looking Deeper
Is it satire?
Who’s providing the information?
What’s the scale of the story?
If there’s an “outrage,” are people actually upset?
How do different news outlets present the story?

CROWDFUNDING CREDIBILITY
Lots of news outlets cover cool crowdfunded products on Kickstarter and Indiegogo, or mention that a
story’s subject is raising money on GoFundMe. Before you give money to these campaigns, though, you
should make sure they’re not unrealistic or scammy.
For product-based campaigns — like a board game, an indie movie, or a gadget — does the creator have
relevant past experience? Does the funding goal seem way too low to create the product they’re
describing? If they’ve raised money in a previous campaign, were the backers satisfied?

With personal campaigns, look for a connection between the campaign and the person who’s supposed to
get the money — like a link in a news story or from the person’s known social media accounts.
GoFundMe also offers more specific guidelines on its site.

In general, be cautious of crowdfunding projects that seem far more ambitious than mainstream products
and services. If nobody — including the US government — has been able to build a giant border wall
between the US and Mexico, there might be unforeseen difficulties that help explain that. And if big
computing companies aren’t selling an ultra-thin, super-cheap laptop-tablet-phone hybrid, they may have
realized it’s just a bad idea.

STEP FOUR: HOW TO WEIGH THE EVIDENCE

At this point, you probably understand the story you started with pretty well. You’re ready
for the last, most subjective step of the process: deciding what it means. If you’ve been
momentarily fooled by an Onion link or some other fake story — and seriously, it’s
happened to all of us — this isn’t a tough step. If it’s a real piece of news, things get a lot
harder.

You obviously don’t want to believe everything you see or read. But
uncritically disbelieving everything is just as bad. Some news sources really are more
consistently accurate than others. Some expert opinions are more trustworthy than your own
amateur research. If you only believe things that you’ve checked with your own eyes, you’ll
have an incredibly blinkered view of the world.

So the goal here isn’t to identify why a story is wrong. It’s to identify how the story works —
which parts are complicated and subjective, which parts are probably accurate, and how
much it should change your opinions or behavior.
Looking Deeper
Are important facts getting left out or distorted?
What’s the larger narrative?
What happens if you’re wrong?
Why share this story?

SOMETIMES EVERYBODY GETS THINGS WRONG

Sometimes, even the most well-regarded news sources release stories that aren’t true. In one extreme
2013 example, hackers took over the Associated Press  Twitter account and claimed there were explosions
at the White House. The story was quickly debunked, but for the first few minutes, the average reader
could very reasonably assume the news was real.

More commonly, sources can lie, documents can be faked, and reporters can mishear quotes. Breaking
news stories can be unreliable because nobody — including government officials and other authorities
— knows what’s going on. Radio station WNYC published an excellent “Breaking News Consumer’s
Handbook” for just this reason.

If you share stories on social media, there’s a good chance you’ll eventually post something that’s
inaccurate or misleading, even if you’re diligently doing research.

That doesn’t mean that nothing is true or that every site is equally fake. You might see a bad story from
an outlet that carefully outlines its sources, explains the context of an event, and corrects mistakes when it
finds them. You’re much more likely to see a bad story from an outlet that posts context-free rumors and
doesn’t explain where it’s getting information. If you read a site regularly over time, you’ll get a better
sense of how much to trust it.

By the same token, you might occasionally believe something false if you’re careful. But if you don’t care
about getting things right, it’ll happen much more often.

CONCLUSION
Solving misinformation and disinformation isn’t as simple as following a checklist. Getting
too invested in the checklist can even backfire. Researcher danah boyd has described a dark
side of media literacy education in schools — where asking students to think critically can
cement a blanket assumption that news outlets are lying. And I don’t want to put all the
responsibility for solving misinformation on individuals.

But here’s the thing: I think all this stuff is fun. Tracing the path of information online is one
of my favorite activities, like solving a puzzle or directing an archaeological dig. I want to
share that process with other people — and to make a case for why getting things right is
more interesting and valuable than just confirming your beliefs or scoring points online.

And above all, I want to argue for treating investigation like a shovel, not a knife. Critical
thinking shouldn’t just be a synonym for doubting or debunking something, and the point of
research isn’t simply to poke holes in a story. It’s to understand the story better, or — if
somebody is telling that story maliciously or incompetently — to get deep enough to find the
truth.

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Journalism is in a state of considerable flux. New digital platforms have unleashed

innovative journalistic practices that enable novel forms of communication and greater
global reach than at any point in human history. But on the other hand, disinformation and
hoaxes that are popularly referred to as “fake news” are accelerating and affecting the way
individuals interpret daily developments. Driven by foreign actors, citizen journalism, and
the proliferation of talk radio and cable news, many information systems have become more
polarized and contentious, and there has been a precipitous decline in public trust in
traditional journalism.

Darrell M. West
Vice President and Director - Governance Studies
Founding Director - Center for Technology Innovation
@DarrWest

Fake news and sophisticated disinformation campaigns are especially problematic in

democratic systems, and there is growing debate on how to address these issues without
undermining the benefits of digital media. In order to maintain an open, democratic system,
it is important that government, business, and consumers work together to solve these
problems. Governments should promote news literacy and strong professional journalism in
their societies. The news industry must provide high-quality journalism in order to build
public trust and correct fake news and disinformation without legitimizing them. Technology
companies should invest in tools that identify fake news, reduce financial incentives for
those who profit from disinformation, and improve online accountability. Educational
institutions should make informing people about news literacy a high priority. Finally,
individuals should follow a diversity of news sources, and be skeptical of what they read and
watch.

THE STATE OF THE NEWS MEDIA

The news media landscape has changed dramatically over the past decades. Through digital
sources, there has been a tremendous increase in the reach of journalism, social media, and
public engagement. Checking for news online—whether through Google, Twitter, Facebook,
major newspapers, or local media websites—has become ubiquitous, and smartphone alerts
and mobile applications bring the latest developments to people instantaneously around the
world. As of 2017, 93 percent of Americans say they receive news online. [1] When asked
where they got online news in the last two hours, 36 percent named a news organization
website or app; 35 percent said social media (which typically means a post from a news
organization, but can be a friend’s commentary); 20 percent recalled a search engine; 15
percent indicated a news organization email, text, or alert; 9 percent said it was another
source; and 7 percent named a family member email or text (see Figure 1). [2]
In general, young people are most likely to get their news through online sources, relying
heavily on mobile devices for their communications. According to the Pew Research Center,
55 percent of smartphone users receive news alerts on their devices. And about 47 percent of
those receiving alerts click through to read the story. [3] Increasingly, people can customize
information delivery to their personal preferences. For example, it is possible to sign up for
news alerts from many organizations so that people hear news relevant to their particular
interests.
There have been changes overtime in sources of news overall. Figure 2 shows the results for
2012 to 2017. It demonstrates that the biggest gain has been in reliance upon social media. In
2012-2013, 27 percent relied upon social media sites, compared to 51 percent who did so in
2017.[4] In contrast, the percentage of Americans relying upon print news has dropped from
38 to 22 percent.
Figure 2: Change in overall news sources, 2012-2017
TVPrintOnline (incl.
social)Social2013201420152016Year201220170%20%40%60%80%Percent0%80%
Source: Nic Newman, “Digital News Sources,” Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, 2017.

A number of research organizations have found significant improvements in digital access

around the world. For example, the Pew Research Center has documented through surveys in
21 emerging nations that internet usage has risen from 45 percent in 2013 to 54 percent in
2015. That number still trails the 87 percent usage figure seen in 11 developed countries, but
there clearly have been major gains in many places around the world. [5]
Social media sites are very popular in the developing world. As shown in Figure 3, 86
percent of Middle Eastern internet users rely upon social networks, compared to 82 percent
in Latin America, 76 percent in Africa, 71 percent in the United States, 66 percent in Asia
and the Pacific, and 65 percent in Europe.

Figure 3: Use of social media in various regions, 2016

EuropeAsiaUnited StatesAfricaLatin AmericaMiddle
EastRegion0%20%40%60%80%100%Percent0%100%
Source: Jacob Poushter, “Smartphone Ownership and Internet Usage Continues to Climb in Emerging
Economies,” Pew Research Center, February 22, 2016.

In addition, the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism has demonstrated important
trends in news consumption. It has shown major gains in reliance upon mobile news
notifications. The percentage of people in the United States making use of this source has
risen by 8 percentage points, while there have been gains of 7 percentage points in South
Korea and 4 percentage points in Australia. There also have been increases in the use of
news aggregators, digital news sources, and voice-activated digital assistants. [6]
DECLINING TRUST IN THE NEWS MEDIA

In the United States, there is a declining public trust in traditional journalism. The Gallup
Poll asked a number of Americans over the past two decades how much trust and confidence
they have in mass media reporting the news fully, accurately, and fairly. As shown in Figure
4, the percentage saying they had a great deal or fair amount of trust dropped from 53 percent
in 1997 to 32 percent in 2016.[7]
Figure 4: Public trust in traditional news media, 1997-2016
200020052010Year199720160%10%20%30%40%50%60%Percent0%60%
Source: Gallup, “Americans’ Trust in Mass Media Sinks to New Low,” September 14, 2016.

Between news coverage they don’t like and fake news that is manipulative in nature, many
Americans question the accuracy of their news. A recent Gallup poll found that only 37
percent believe “news organizations generally get the facts straight.” This is down from
about half of the country who felt that way in 1998. There is also a startling partisan divide in
public assessments. Only 14 percent of Republicans believe the media report the news
accurately, compared to 62 percent for Democrats. Even more disturbingly, “a solid majority
of the country believes major news organizations routinely produce false information.” [8]
This decline in public trust in media is dangerous for democracies. With the current political
situation in a state of great flux in the U.S. and around the world, there are questions
concerning the quality of the information available to the general public and the impact of
marginal media organizations on voter assessments. These developments have complicated
the manner in which people hold leaders accountable and the way in which our political
system operates.
CHALLENGES FACING THE DIGITAL MEDIA LANDSCAPE

As the overall media landscape has changed, there have been several ominous developments.
Rather than using digital tools to inform people and elevate civic discussion, some
individuals have taken advantage of social and digital platforms to deceive, mislead, or harm
others through creating or disseminating fake news and disinformation.

Fake news is generated by outlets that masquerade as actual media sites but promulgate false
or misleading accounts designed to deceive the public. When these activities move from
sporadic and haphazard to organized and systematic efforts, they become disinformation
campaigns with the potential to disrupt campaigns and governance in entire countries. [9]
As an illustration, the United States saw apparently organized efforts to disseminate false
material in the 2016 presidential election. A Buzzfeed analysis found that the most widely
shared fake news stories in 2016 were about “Pope Francis endorsing Donald Trump, Hillary
Clinton selling weapons to ISIS, Hillary Clinton being disqualified from holding federal
office, and the FBI director receiving millions from the Clinton Foundation.” [10] Using a
social media assessment, it claimed that the 20 largest fake stories generated 8.7 million
shares, reactions, and comments, compared to 7.4 million generated by the top 20 stories
from 19 major news sites.
When [fake news] activities move from sporadic and
haphazard to organized and systematic efforts, they
become disinformation campaigns with the potential to
disrupt campaigns and governance in entire countries.
Fake content was widespread during the presidential campaign. Facebook has estimated that
126 million of its platform users saw articles and posts promulgated by Russian sources.
Twitter has found 2,752 accounts established by Russian groups that tweeted 1.4 million
times in 2016.[11] The widespread nature of these disinformation efforts led Columbia Law
School Professor Tim Wu to ask: “Did Twitter kill the First Amendment?” [12]
A specific example of disinformation was the so-called “Pizzagate” conspiracy, which
started on Twitter. The story falsely alleged that sexually abused children were hidden at
Comet Ping Pong, a Washington, D.C. pizza parlor, and that Hillary Clinton knew about the
sex ring. It seemed so realistic to some that a North Carolina man named Edgar Welch drove
to the capital city with an assault weapon to personally search for the abused kids. After
being arrested by the police, Welch said “that he had read online that the Comet restaurant
was harboring child sex slaves and that he wanted to see for himself if they were there.
[Welch] stated that he was armed.”[13]
A post-election survey of 3,015 American adults suggested that it is difficult for news
consumers to distinguish fake from real news. Chris Jackson of Ipsos Public Affairs
undertook a survey that found “fake news headlines fool American adults about 75 percent of
the time” and “‘fake news’ was remembered by a significant portion of the electorate and
those stories were seen as credible.”[14] Another online survey of 1,200 individuals after the
election by Hunt Allcott and Matthew Gentzkow found that half of those who saw these fake
stories believed their content.[15]
False news stories are not just a problem in the United States, but afflict other countries
around the world. For example, India has been plagued by fake news concerning cyclones,
public health, and child abuse. When intertwined with religious or caste issues, the
combination can be explosive and lead to violence. People have been killed when false
rumors have spread through digital media about child abductions. [16]
Sometimes, fake news stories are amplified and disseminated quickly through false accounts,
or automated “bots.” Most bots are benign in nature, and some major sites like Facebook ban
bots and seek to remove them, but there are social bots that are “malicious entities designed
specifically with the purpose to harm. These bots mislead, exploit, and manipulate social
media discourse with rumors, spam, malware, misinformation, slander, or even just noise.” [17]
This information can distort election campaigns, affect public perceptions, or shape human
emotions. Recent research has found that “elusive bots could easily infiltrate a population of
unaware humans and manipulate them to affect their perception of reality, with unpredictable
results.”[18] In some cases, they can “engage in more complex types of interactions, such as
entertaining conversations with other people, commenting on their posts, and answering their
questions.” Through designated keywords and interactions with influential posters, they can
magnify their influence and affect national or global conversations, especially resonating
with like-minded clusters of people.[19]
An analysis after the 2016 election found that automated bots played a major role in
disseminating false information on Twitter. According to Jonathan Albright, an assistant
professor of media analytics at Elon University, “what bots are doing is really getting this
thing trending on Twitter. These bots are providing the online crowds that are providing
legitimacy.”[20] With digital content, the more posts that are shared or liked, the more traffic
they generate. Through these means, it becomes relatively easy to spread fake information
over the internet. For example, as graphic content spreads, often with inflammatory
comments attached, it can go viral and be seen as credible information by people far from the
original post.

Everyone has a responsibility to combat the

scourge of fake news. This ranges from
supporting investigative journalism,
reducing financial incentives for fake news,
and improving digital literacy among the
general public.
False information is dangerous because of its ability to affect public opinion and electoral
discourse. According to David Lazer, “such situations can enable discriminatory and
inflammatory ideas to enter public discourse and be treated as fact. Once embedded, such
ideas can in turn be used to create scapegoats, to normalize prejudices, to harden us-versus-
them mentalities and even, in extreme cases, to catalyze and justify violence.” [21] As he
points out, factors such as source credibility, repetition, and social pressure affect
information flows and the extent to which misinformation is taken seriously. When viewers
see trusted sources repeat certain points, they are more likely to be influenced by that
material.
Recent polling data demonstrate how harmful these practices have become to the reputations
of reputable platforms. According to the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, only
24 percent of Americans today believe social media sites “do a good job separating fact from
fiction, compared to 40 percent for the news media.” [22] That demonstrates how much these
developments have hurt public discourse.
THE RISKS OF REGULATION

Government harassment of journalists is a serious problem in many parts of the world.

United Nations Human Rights Council Special Rapporteur David Kaye notes that “all too
many leaders see journalism as the enemy, reporters as rogue actors, tweeps as terrorists, and
bloggers as blasphemers.”[23] In Freedom House’s most recent report on global press
freedoms, researchers found that media freedom was at its lowest point in 13 years and there
were “unprecedented threats to journalists and media outlets in major democracies and new
moves by authoritarian states to control the media, including beyond their borders.” [24]
Journalists can often be accused of generating fake news and there have been numerous cases
of legitimate journalists being arrested or their work being subject to official scrutiny. In
Egypt, an Al-Jazeera producer was arrested on charges of “incitement against state
institutions and broadcasting fake news with the aim of spreading chaos.” [25] This was after
the network broadcast a documentary criticizing Egyptian military conscription.
Some governments have also moved to create government regulations to control information
flows and censor content on social media platforms. Indonesia has established a government
agency to “monitor news circulating online” and “tackle fake news.” [26] In the Philippines,
Senator Joel Villanueva has introduced a bill that would impose up to a five-year prison term
for those who publish or distribute “fake news,” which the legislation defined as activities
that “cause panic, division, chaos, violence, and hate, or those which exhibit a propaganda to
blacken or discredit one’s reputation.”[27]
Critics have condemned the bill’s definition of social networks, misinformation, hate speech,
and illegal speech as too broad, and believe that it risks criminalizing investigative
journalism and limiting freedom of expression. Newspaper columnist Jarius Bondoc noted
“the bill is prone to abuse. A bigot administration can apply it to suppress the opposition. By
prosecuting critics as news fakers, the government can stifle legitimate dissent.
Whistleblowers, not the grafters, would be imprisoned and fined for daring to talk.
Investigative journalists would cram the jails.” [28]
In a situation of false information, it is tempting for legal authorities to deal with offensive
content and false news by forbidding or regulating it. For example, in Germany, legislation
was passed in June 2017 that forces digital platforms to delete hate speech and
misinformation. It requires large social media companies to “delete illegal, racist or
slanderous comments and posts within 24 hours.” Companies can be fined up to $57 million
for content that is not deleted from the platform, such as Nazi symbols, Holocaust denials, or
language classified as hate speech.[29]
The German legislation’s critics have complained that its definition of “obviously” illegal
speech risks censorship and a loss of freedom of speech. As an illustration, the law applies
the rules to social media platforms in the country with more than 2 million users.
Commentators have noted that is not a reasonable way to define relevant social networks.
There could be much smaller networks that inflict greater social damage.

Overly restrictive regulation of internet platforms in

open societies sets a dangerous precedent and can
encourage authoritarian regimes to continue and/or
expand censorship.
In addition, it is not always clear how to identify objectionable content. [30] While it is pretty
clear how to define speech advocating violence or harm to other people, it is less apparent
when talking about hate speech or “defamation of the state.” What is considered “hateful” to
one individual may not be to someone else. There is some ambiguity regarding what
constitutes hate speech in a digital context. Does it include mistakes in reporting, opinion
piece commentary, political satire, leader misstatements, or outright fabrications? Watchdog
organizations complained that “overly broad language could affect a range of platforms and
services and put decisions about what is illegal content into the hands of private companies
that may be inclined to over-censor in order to avoid potential fines.” [31]
Overly restrictive regulation of internet platforms in open societies sets a dangerous
precedent and can encourage authoritarian regimes to continue and/or expand censorship.
This will restrict global freedom of expression and generate hostility to democratic
governance. Democracies that place undue limits on speech risk legitimizing authoritarian
leaders and their efforts to crackdown basic human rights. It is crucial that efforts to improve
news quality not weaken journalistic content or the investigative landscape facing reporters.

OTHER APPROACHES

There are several alternatives to deal with falsehoods and disinformation that can be
undertaken by various organizations. Many of these ideas represent solutions that combat
fake news and disinformation without endangering freedom of expression and investigative
journalism.

Government responsibilities
1) One of the most important thing governments around the world can do is to encourage
independent, professional journalism. The general public needs reporters who help them
make sense of complicated developments and deal with the ever-changing nature of social,
economic, and political events. Many areas are going through transformation that I elsewhere
have called “megachanges,” and these shifts have created enormous anger, anxiety, and
confusion.[32] In a time of considerable turmoil, it is vital to have a healthy Fourth Estate that
is independent of public authorities.
2) Governments should avoid crackdowns on the news media’s ability to cover the news.
Those activities limit freedom of expression and hamper the ability of journalists to cover
political developments. The United States should set a good example with other countries. If
American leaders censor or restrict the news media, it encourages other countries to do the
same thing.
3) Governments should avoid censoring content and making online platforms liable for
misinformation. This could curb free expression, making people hesitant to share their
political opinions for fear it could be censored as fake news. Such overly restrictive
regulation could set a dangerous precedent and inadvertently encourage authoritarian regimes
to weaken freedom of expression.
News industry actions
1) The news industry should continue to focus on high-quality journalism that builds trust
and attracts greater audiences. An encouraging development is that many news organizations
have experienced major gains in readership and viewership over the last couple of years, and
this helps to put major news outlets on a better financial footing. But there have been
precipitous drops in public confidence in the news media in recent years, and this has
damaged the ability of journalists to report the news and hold leaders accountable. During a
time of considerable chaos and disorder, the world needs a strong and viable news media that
informs citizens about current events and long-term trends.
2) It is important for news organizations to call out fake news and disinformation without
legitimizing them. They can do this by relying upon their in-house professionals and well-
respected fact-checkers. In order to educate users about news sites that are created to
mislead, nonprofit organizations such as Politifact, Factcheck.org, and Snopes judge the
accuracy of leader claims and write stories detailing the truth or lack thereof of particular
developments. These sources have become a visible part of election campaigns and candidate
assessment in the United States and elsewhere. Research by Dartmouth College Professor
Brendan Nyhan has found that labeling a Facebook post as “disputed” reduces the percentage
of readers believing the false news by 10 percentage points.[33] In addition, Melissa Zimdars,
a communication and media professor at Merrimack College, has created a list of 140
websites that use “distorted headlines and decontextualized or dubious information.” [34] This
helps people track promulgators of false news.
It is important for news organizations to call out fake
news and disinformation without legitimizing them.
Similar efforts are underway in other countries. In Ukraine, an organization known as
StopFake relies upon “peer-to-peer counter propaganda” to dispel false stories. Its
researchers assess “news stories for signs of falsified evidence, such as manipulated or
misrepresented images and quotes” as well as looking for evidence of systematic
misinformation campaigns. Over the past few years, it has found Russian social media posts
alleging that Ukrainian military forces were engaging in atrocities against Russian
nationalists living in eastern Ukraine or that they had swastikas painted on their vehicles.
[35]
 In a related vein, the French news outlet Le Monde has a “database of more than 600
news sites that have been identified and tagged as ‘satire,’ ‘real,’ [or] ‘fake.’” [36]
Crowdsourcing draws on the expertise of large numbers of readers or viewers to discern
possible problems in news coverage, and it can be an effective way to deal with fake news.
One example is The Guardian’s effort to draw on the wisdom of the crowd to assess 450,000
documents about Parliament member expenses in the United Kingdom. It received the
documents but lacked the personnel quickly to analyze their newsworthiness. To deal with
this situation, the newspaper created a public website that allowed ordinary people to read
each document and designate it into one of four news categories: 1) “not interesting,” 2)
“interesting but known,” 3) “interesting,” or 4) “investigate this.” [37] Digital platforms allow
news organizations to engage large numbers of readers this way. The Guardian, for example,
was able “to attract 20,000 readers to review 170,000 documents in the first 80
hours.”[38] These individuals helped the newspaper to assess which documents were most
problematic and therefore worthy of further investigation and ultimately news coverage.
Technology company responsibilities
1) Technology firms should invest in technology to find fake news and identify it for
users through algorithms and crowdsourcing. There are innovations in fake news and hoax
detection that are useful to media platforms. For example, fake news detection can be
automated, and social media companies should invest in their ability to do so. Former FCC
Commissioner Tom Wheeler argues that “public interest algorithms” can aid in identifying
and publicizing fake news posts and therefore be a valuable tool to protect consumers. [39]
In this vein, computer scientist William Yang Wang, relying upon PolitiFact.com, created a
public database of 12,836 statements labeled for accuracy and developed an algorithm that
compared “surface-level linguistic patterns” from false assertions to wording contained in
digital news stories. This allowed him to integrate text and analysis, and identify stories that
rely on false information. His conclusion is that “when combining meta-data with text,
significant improvements can be achieved for fine-grained fake news detection.” [40] In a
similar approach, Eugenio Tacchini and colleagues say it is possible to identify hoaxes with a
high degree of accuracy. Testing this proposition with a database of 15,500 Facebook posts
and over 909,000 users, they find an accuracy rate of over 99 percent and say outside
organizations can use their automatic tool to pinpoint sites engaging in fake news. [41] They
use this result to advocate the development of automatic hoax detection systems.
Algorithms are powerful vehicles in the digital era and help shape people’s quest for
information and how they find online material. They can also help with automatic hoax
detection, and there are ways to identify fake news to educate readers without censoring it.
According to Kelly Born of the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, digital platforms
should down rank or flag dubious stories, and find a way to better identify and rank authentic
content to improve information-gathering and presentation. [42] As an example, several media
platforms have instituted “disputed news” tags that warn readers and viewers about
contentious content. This could be anything from information that is outright false to
material where major parties disagree about its factualness. It is a way to warn readers about
possible inaccuracies in online information. Wikipedia is another platform that does this.
Since it publishes crowdsourced material, it is subject to competing claims regarding factual
accuracy. It deals with this problem by adding tags to material identifying it as “disputed
news.”
Yet this cannot be relied on by itself. A survey of 7,500 individuals undertaken by David
Rand and Gordon Pennycook of Yale University argue that alerting readers about inaccurate
information doesn’t help much. They explored the impact of independent fact-checkers and
claim that “the existence of ‘disputed’ tags made participants just 3.7 percentage points more
likely to correctly judge headlines as false.”[43] The authors worry that the outpouring of false
news overwhelms fact-checkers and makes it impossible to evaluate disinformation.
Algorithms are powerful vehicles in the digital era, and
they can help establish automatic hoax detection systems.
2) These companies shouldn’t make money from fake news manufacturers and should make
it hard to monetize hoaxes. It is important to weaken financial incentives for bad content,
especially false news and disinformation, as the manufacturing of fake news is often
financially motivated. Like all clickbait, false information can be profitable due to ad
revenues or general brand-building. Indeed, during the 2016 presidential campaign, trolls in
countries such as Macedonia reported making a lot of money through their dissemination of
erroneous material. While social media platforms like Facebook have made it harder for
users to profit from fake news,[44] ad networks can do much more to stop the monetization of
fake news, and publishers can stop carrying the ad networks that refuse to do so.
3) Strengthen online accountability through stronger real-name policies and enforcement
against fake accounts. Firms can do this through “real-name registration,” which is the
requirement that internet users have to provide the hosting platform with their true identity.
This makes it easier to hold individuals accountable for what they post or disseminate online
and also stops people from hiding behind fake names when they make offensive comments
or engage in prohibited activities.[45] This is relevant to fake news and misinformation
because of the likelihood that people will engage in worse behavior if they believe their
actions are anonymous and not likely to be made public. As famed Justice Louis Brandeis
long ago observed, “sunshine is said to be the best of disinfectants.” [46] It helps to keep
people honest and accountable for their public activities.
Educational institutions
1) Funding efforts to enhance news literacy should be a high priority for governments. This
is especially the case with people who are going online for the first time. For those
individuals, it is hard to distinguish false from real news, and they need to learn how to
evaluate news sources, not accept at face value everything they see on social media or digital
news sites. Helping people become better consumers of online information is crucial as the
world moves towards digital immersion. There should be money to support partnerships
between journalists, businesses, educational institutions, and nonprofit organizations to
encourage news literacy.
2) Education is especially important for young people. Research by Joseph Kahne and
Benjamin Bowyer found that third-party assessments matter to young readers. However,
their effects are limited. Those statements judged to be inaccurate reduced reader persuasion,
although to a lower extent than alignment with the individual’s prior policy beliefs. [47] If the
person already agreed with the statement, it was more difficult for fact-checking to sway
them against the information.
How the public can protect itself
1) Individuals can protect themselves from false news and disinformation by following
a diversity of people and perspectives. Relying upon a small number of like-minded news
sources limits the range of material available to people and increases the odds they may fall
victim to hoaxes or false rumors. This method is not entirely fool-proof, but it increases the
odds of hearing well-balanced and diverse viewpoints.
2) In the online world, readers and viewers should be skeptical about news sources. In the
rush to encourage clicks, many online outlets resort to misleading or sensationalized
headlines. They emphasize the provocative or the attention-grabbing, even if that news hook
is deceptive. News consumers have to keep their guard up and understand that not everything
they read is accurate and many digital sites specialize in false news. Learning how to judge
news sites and protect oneself from inaccurate information is a high priority in the digital
age.
CONCLUSION

From this analysis, it is clear there are a number of ways to promote timely, accurate, and
civil discourse in the face of false news and disinformation. [48] In today’s world, there is
considerable experimentation taking place with online news platforms. News organizations
are testing products and services that help them identify hate speech and language that incites
violence. There is a major flowering of new models and approaches that bodes well for the
future of online journalism and media consumption.
At the same time, everyone has a responsibility to combat the scourge of fake news and
disinformation. This ranges from the promotion of strong norms on professional journalism,
supporting investigative journalism, reducing financial incentives for fake news, and
improving digital literacy among the general public. Taken together, these steps would
further quality discourse and weaken the environment that has propelled disinformation
around the globe.

Note: I wish to thank Hillary Schaub and Quinn Bornstein for their valuable research
assistance. They were very helpful in finding useful materials for this project.
The Brookings Institution is a nonprofit organization devoted to independent research and
policy solutions. Its mission is to conduct high-quality, independent research and, based on
that research, to provide innovative, practical recommendations for policymakers and the
public. The conclusions and recommendations of any Brookings publication are solely those
of its author(s), and do not reflect the views of the Institution, its management, or its other
scholars.
 Support for this publication was generously provided by Facebook. Brookings recognizes
that the value it provides is in its absolute commitment to quality, independence, and impact.
Activities supported by its donors reflect this commitment.
e know people want to see accurate information on Facebook – and so do we.

False news is harmful to our community, it makes the world less informed, and it
erodes trust. It's not a new phenomenon, and all of us — tech companies, media
companies, newsrooms, teachers — have a responsibility to do our part in
addressing it. At Facebook, we're working to fight the spread of false news in three
key areas:

 disrupting economic incentives because most false news is financially

motivated;

 building new products to curb the spread of false news; and

 helping people make more informed decisions when they encounter false

news.

Disrupting Economic Incentives

When it comes to fighting false news, one of the most effective approaches is
removing the economic incentives for traffickers of misinformation. We've found that
a lot of fake news is financially motivated. These spammers make money by
masquerading as legitimate news publishers and posting hoaxes that get people to
visit their sites, which are often mostly ads.

Some of the steps we're taking include:

 Better identifying false news through our community and third-party fact-
checking organizations so that we can limit its spread, which, in turn, makes it
uneconomical.

 Making it as difficult as possible for people posting false news to buy ads on
our platform through strict enforcement of our policies.

 Applying machine learning to assist our response teams in detecting fraud

and enforcing our policies against inauthentic spam accounts.

 Updating our detection of fake accounts on Facebook, which makes

spamming at scale much harder.

Building New Products

 We're building, testing and iterating on new products to identify and limit the spread
of false news. We cannot become arbiters of truth ourselves — it's not feasible given
our scale, and it's not our role. Instead, we're working on better ways to hear from
our community and work with third parties to identify false news and prevent it from
spreading on our platform.

Some of the work includes:

 Ranking Improvements: We're always looking to improve News Feed by

listening to what the community tells us. We've found opportunities like the fact that
if reading an article makes people significantly less likely to share it, that may be a
sign that a story has misled people in some way. We're continuing to test this signal
and others in News Feed ranking in order to reduce the prevalence of false news
content.

 Easier Reporting: We've always relied on our community to determine what is

valuable and what is not. We're testing ways to make it easier to report a false news
story if you see one on Facebook, which you can do by clicking the upper right hand
corner of a post. Stories that are flagged as false by our community then might show
up lower in your feed.

 Working with Partners: We believe providing more context can help people
decide for themselves what to trust and what to share. We've started a program to
work with independent third-party fact-checking organizations. We'll use the reports
from our community, along with other signals, to send stories to these organizations.
If the fact-checking organizations identify a story as false, it will get flagged as
disputed and there will be a link to a corresponding article explaining why. Stories
that have been disputed also appear lower in News Feed.

Helping People Make More Informed Decisions

Though we're committed to doing everything we can to reduce the spread of false
news to as close to zero as possible, we also need to make sure we take steps to
address the problem when people do encounter hoaxes. To that end, we're
exploring ways to give people more context about stories so they can make more
informed decisions about what to read, trust and share and ways to give people
access to more perspectives about the topics that they're reading.

Some of the work we've been focused on includes:

 Facebook Journalism Project: We are committed to collaborating with news

organizations to develop products together, providing tools and services for
journalists, and helping people get better information so they can make smart
choices about what they read. We are convening key experts and organizations
 already doing important work in this area, such as the Walter Cronkite School of
Journalism and Mass Communication at Arizona State University, and have been
listening and learning to help decide what new research to conduct and projects to
fund. Working with the News Literacy Project, we are producing a series of public
service announcements (PSAs) to help inform people on Facebook about this
important issue.

 News Integrity Initiative: We've joined a group of over 25 funders and

participants — including tech industry leaders, academic institutions, non-profits and
third party organizations — to launch the News Integrity Initiative, a global
consortium focused on helping people make informed judgments about the news
they read and share online. Founding funders of this $14-million fund include
Facebook, the Craig Newmark Philanthropic Fund, the Ford Foundation, the
Democracy Fund, the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, the Tow
Foundation, AppNexus, Mozilla and Betaworks. The initiative's mission is to advance
news literacy, to increase trust in journalism around the world and to better inform
the public conversation. The initiative, which is administered by the CUNY Graduate
School of Journalism, will fund applied research and projects, and convene
meetings with industry experts.

We need to work across industries to help solve this problem: technology

companies, media companies, educational organizations and our own community
can come together to help curb the spread of misinformation and false news. By
focusing on the three key areas outlined above, we hope we will make progress
toward limiting the spread of false news — and toward building a more informed
community on Facebook.