If you missed our March 4th session on how social media affected the 2016 election and how to judge information you find on the Internet and social media, we have the links to the resources mentioned and video of the presentation. The presentation is on Facebook. Use the following links: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4.
Information and Misinformation on Social Media: Practical Information Literacy
March 4, 2019
Tip #4
Wise to the Web
Web Evaluation Tools – Where You Do the Work!
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STAAR Method http://uscupstate.libguides.com/c.php?g=257977&p=1721674
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Created by University of South Carolina Upstate librarians to evaluate the credibility of a website. Examines SLANT, TOPICAL, AUTHORITY, ACCURACY, and RELEVANCE.
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CRAAP Test https://libguides.cmich.edu/web_research/craap
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Created by California State University – Chico librarians to evaluate the creditability of a website. Examines Currency, Relevance, Authority, Accuracy, and Purpose.
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CARS Checklist https://www.virtualsalt.com/evalu8it.htm
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Credibility, Accuracy, Reasonableness, and Support (cited on the California State University – Chico page)
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A.S.P.E.C.T http://libraryguides.library.clark.edu/evaluating-information/aspect
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Created by Clark College librarians to evaluate the credibility of a website. Examines Authority, Sources, Purpose, Evenness, Coverage, and Timeliness
Web Evaluation Tools – Where Chrome Extensions the Work!
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From the Chrome Store - https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/knownews/bmlfbcipfpdohbhhlkibdiacikbpaofm
Other Tools
1. Domain Tools Who Is - http://whois.domaintools.com/domaintools.com
a. Domain Tools allows you to look up domain ownership, IP address, history, rank, etc.
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Wayback Machine https://archive.org/about/
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The Wayback Machine is a digital archive of the World Wide Web and other information on the internet. It is a nonprofit organization located in San Franciso, CA. It was launched in 2001.
Tip #5
Google Is Not the Only Game in Town
Advanced Search in Google
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Limit the search to domain types such as .gov, .com, .org as well as perform more targeted searches narrowing language, region, file types, exact words, specific words
Yippy https://yippy.com/
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Yippy is a metasearch engine that groups search results into clusters. It was originally developed and released by Vivisimo in 2004 under the name Clusty. It was created by Carnegie Mellon researchers.
ISeekEducation http://education.iseek.com/iseek/home.page
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ISeekEducation is a targeted search engine that compiles hundreds of thousands of authoritative resources from university, government, and established noncommercial providers. It provides time-saving intelligent search and a personal Web-based library to help you locate the most relevant results.
Microsoft Academic https://academic.microsoft.com/
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Microsoft Academic is a free public web search engine for academic publications and literature developed by Microsoft Research. It was re-launched in 2016 and features a new data structure and search engine using semantic search technologies. It is a bibliographic database.
Tip #6
Nose around New Sites
Media Literacy Clearinghouse is a nationally recognized media literacy resource website developed by Frank W. Baker, a media literacy consultant, who delivers workshops to educators. The site has a list of tools and resources to evaluate new sites. https://frankwbaker.com/mlc/fake-news-recommendations/
News Literacy Project is a national education nonprofit offering nonpartisan independent programs that teacher students how to know what to believe in the digital age. https://newslit.org/ . News Literacy Project produces a newsletter called the Sift https://newslit.org/educators/sift/ that sorts through rumors, hoaxes, and other information to use in the classroom but you can sign up, too!
Tip #7
Triangulate Your Sources
Check out multiple sources such as traditional media and library databases
A good fact-checking site uses neutral wording, provides unbiased sources to support its claims and reliable links.
Here are some fact-checking sources:
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Politifact - https://www.politifact.com/ Pulitzer Prize winning site run by editors and reporters from the Tampa Bay Times (Florida) newspaper. "PolitiFact is a fact-checking website that rates the accuracy of claims by elected officials and others who speak up in American politics.... The PolitiFact state sites are run by news organizations that have partnered with the Times." Read about their principles under 'About Us.'
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Factcheck. Org - https://www.factcheck.org/ A project of the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania....a nonpartisan, nonprofit “consumer advocate” for voters that aims to reduce the level of deception and confusion in U.S. politics. We monitor the factual accuracy of what is said by major U.S. political players in the form of TV ads, debates, speeches, interviews and news releases.
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Flackcheck.org - http://flackcheck.org/ A project of the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania, it is the political literacy companion site to the award-winning FactCheck.org. The site provides “resources designed to help viewers recognize flaws in arguments in general and political ads in particular."
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Opensecrets.org - https://www.opensecrets.org/ A project of the Center for Responsive Politics, it is the nation’s premier research group tracking money in U.S. politics and its effects on elections and public policy. It is independent and nonpartisan.
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Fact checker – https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker “The purpose of this web site, and an accompanying column in the Sunday print edition of the Washington Post, is to “truth squad” the statements of political figures regarding issues of great importance, be they national, international or local.”
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Snopes – https://www.snopes.com/ Started in 1994, Snopes has been the de facto source for sorting out those urban legends, folklore, myths, misinformation, and rumors.
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TruthorFiction - https://www.truthorfiction.com/ - “Non-partisan website where internet users can quickly and easily get information about eRumors, fake news, disinformation, warnings, offers, requests for help, myths, hoaxes, virus warnings, and humorous and inspirational stories that are circulated by email.
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Hoaxslayer - https://www.hoax-slayer.com/ - “Debunks email and social media hoaxes”
Media Bias/Fact Check - https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/ - Many question the “science” of the website – how does it determine the source bias?
Tip #8
Flushing Out Photos and Videos
SmartInsight.com reports that every 60 seconds, 500 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube, along with 3.3 million Facebook posts.
Here are some tools you can use:
AP FactCheck https://www.apnews.com/APFactCheck
News Literacy Project - https://newslit.org/educators/sift/
Snopes https://www.snopes.com/
Google Reverse Image Search and TinEye
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Enables you to fact check images that you see on social media. Go to images.google.com, click the camera icon (), and either paste in the URL for an image you've seen online, upload an image from your hard drive, or drag an image from another window.
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Videos to help guide you through the process
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Common Sense Media “How to Fact Check Images Using Google” https://www.commonsense.org/education/videos/how-to-use-google-reverse-image-search-to-fact-check-images
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With IPhone and IPad -https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DIwlWouBaHA
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News Literacy Project “Photo Fact-Checking in the Digital Age” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ewrx1lDhVPE
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TinEye Reverse Image Search https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ewrx1lDhVPE
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TinEye crawls the web and has over 34 billion images. How to use TinEye is found here https://www.tineye.com/how
Tip # 9
Bots or No Bots?
EurekAlert! (AAAS) “What’s Trending in Fake News? IU Tool Shows What Stories Go Viral and, if Bots Are to Blame” https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2018-05/iu-wti051718.php
Wojcik, Stefan. “Five Things to Know about Bots on Twitter.” Fact Tank News in the Numbers. Pew Research. http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/04/09/5-things-to-know-about-bots-on-twitter/
What is a bot? A socialbot is a type of bot that controls a social media account. Like all bots, a socialbot is automated software. The exact way a socialbot replicates depends on the social network, but unlike a regular bot, a socialbot spreads by convincing other users that the socialbot is a real person. A socialbot is also known as social networking bot, or social bot.
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Botometer – identifies bots and users can observe how information spreads across Twitter and whether the messages are mostly shared by real people or pushed by a computer program potentiall designed to sway public opinion.
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Hoaxy – https://hoaxy.iuni.iu.edu/faq.html “Visualizes the spread of articles online. Articles can be found on Twitter, or in a corpus of claims and related fact checking.”
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Fakey – http://cnets.indiana.edu/blog/tag/fakey/ “mobile app for teaching news literacy.”