“Don’t believe everything you read on the Internet”, the golden rule that our parents instilled into us during our childhood. I’m grateful that my parents made a big deal about verifying information online, but nowadays I’m not the one that needs to be told that, as it seems that they are the ones spreading false, unverified information.
For example, one of them has a Facebook page that is filled to the brim with political posts that contain either no truth or hidden truths covered in a pile of lies. Actually, that’s a lot of Facebook pages. What’s even more interesting is that many of these pages are ran by the adults who taught us not to believe everything we saw on the Internet.
Because of the increase of misinformation and “fake news” that is being spread online, I thought it would be good to write a guide on verifying information you’ve found. It’s quite simple, will be a quick read and will contain knowledge that, if you don’t already possess, will help you so, so much.
Contents
A Quick Search
The first step you should take in verifying information is performing a quick Google search. If what is being said is true, you shouldn’t have any trouble finding an article or post about the news or event.
How many phones do you think would’ve been saved from being microwaved had people bothered to verify that sketchy post by making a quick Google search?Exactly. A search may take 5 seconds of your time, so don’t worry about wasting time.
Checking Your Sources
No, your Aunt’s Facebook is not a credible source, and neither is your own Facebook page. If that blog you’re reading tells you that water is actually bad for you, you need to 1.) stop reading that blog forever and 2.) check it’s sources.
Don’t assume that the existence of a bibliography means credible research was done. Instead, check through each source and verify that the websites/books/etc. are credible, and that leads me to my third point.
Verifying Sources
This is an important—but most complicated—step of verifying information. First off, you need to verify that the website or post in question is credible, which can be done by the two steps beforehand.
Once you verify that the source is credible, you need to verify that the information itself is credible. To do this, you’ll need to spend a few minutes comparing the information of said credible source to other credible sources. I know, it’s time consuming, but it’s better to have verified information than making a fool out of yourself on your school paper or Facebook wall.
Also make sure to check for the article’s sources, as every source has a source that needs verifying. Sources all the way down.
Keeping a Level-Headed View of Knowledge
The Internet provides us with all the information we can ask for, but it seems that no one wants to use this ability; that people are fine not verifying what they find. And I can’t just blame the people, as certain companies are working against knowledge and hoping for the spread of lies and false truths.
However, you, me, and everyone else have the ability to stick to the truth, all you need to do is spend some time researching and verifying the things you see. If unfortunately, looking up information that challenges propaganda would risk your personal safety and political prosecution, try using a VPN or a proxy service to mask your IP address once you are connected to the internet. Then, use an incognito mode as well as a private search engine such as Duckduckgo or Qwant to stay completely anonymous.
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