This is part three of three in a series on Investigative Searching. Access to the Kit requires an annual membership.
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Spring '18 Contents
Retrieving the information you need from the Internet can be challenging. Internet Search Challenges provide practice and demonstrate techniques to improve your search results and find credible information. This blog introduces new challenges, discusses the difficulties and how they may be overcome.
Image Source: Fact Check Central |
There still is no substitute for personal responsibility as a (re)searcher. Gullibility lives in the fast lane of increasingly speedier computers, servers and results. Having no evaluation strategy is widespread: the democratization of irresponsibility.
This trend has resulted in repeated embarrassment for Google, as its apparently authoritative answers have at times affirmed that the Earth is flat, women are evil, and four U.S. presidents had been members of the Ku Klux Klan (none of which are demonstrably true). It also once answered the query “is obama planning a coup” with information from a conspiracy site claiming that Obama was planning to seize power after his term came to an end.
"Nutcase walks Into Comet Pizza with gun: Anyone who even mentionedIt's a current day problem and not one that is going to go away any time soon--unless enough people practice investigative searching. And when you do, you could be responsible to report what you find as credible or not.#PizzaGate is responsible!"
"When it comes to evaluating information that flows across social channels or pops up in a Google search, young and otherwise digital-savvy students can easily be duped, finds a new report from researchers at Stanford Graduate School of Education." SourceAccess to information is so easy, and there's so much of it, that being discerning is more important than ever. But discernment is not easy. And that's where problems start for information consumers.
"a browser or Facebook plugin that automatically identified quotes and factual assertions from an article and compiled a list of all reporting on those quotes and statements would at the very least allow a reader to understand how contested those details are. For example, a rapidly spreading viral meme attributing a certain statement to President Obama this afternoon could instantly be flagged as actually being a quote by Abraham Lincoln from a century and a half ago. A climate change claim that temperatures have actually dropped by 20 degrees over the past century could show that this number comes from a single personal blog, while all remaining reporting and scientific journals report very different results. Or, in the breaking aftermath of a major terror attack, such a tool could draw together all of the conflicting reports of the death and injury toll to offer a better understanding of the extent of the attack as new information emerges."Such an app doesn't teach the reader how to find supporting documentation, but at least it gives the reader a chance to make up his or her mind by referring to other sources of information. Whether this solves a problem of information literacy or kicks it further down the road is something to consider.
The Mississippi state legislature removed fractions and decimal points from the mathematics curriculum of public secondary schools.It's not true. But if Snopes says it's true, it must be factual, right? Wrong. Snopes maintains a section of its site for "The Repository of Lost Legends" (TRoLL for short). See http://www.snopes.com/lost/lost.asp. One way to tell it's a fake is to check out a link at the bottom of the article: More information about this page. It's very subtle.
“Twitter, Google and Facebook are burying the FBI criminal investigation of Clinton.”
“Donald Trump Protester Speaks Out: ‘I Was Paid $3,500 To Protest Trump’s Rally.'”
"FBI AGENT SUSPECTED IN HILLARY EMAIL LEAKS FOUND DEAD IN APPARENT MURDER-SUICIDE."
“Remember the voting days: Republicans vote on Tuesday, 11/8 and Democrats vote on Wednesday, 11/9”
“Just out according to @CNN: “Utah officials report voting machine problems across entire country.”
Source: http://www.mercurynews.com/2016/11/11/did-fake-news-on-facebook-send-trump-to-the-white-house/
"If you don't look for evidence you blindly place all your trust in the alleged accuracy of a source. How do you know they are right?"
(Source: http://21cif.com//tutorials/micro/mm/evidence/index.php)Here's a helpful open source document on evaluating Fake News sites, thanks to Melissa Zimdars: https://docs.google.com/document/d/10eA5-mCZLSS4MQY5QGb5ewC3VAL6pLkT53V_81ZyitM/preview