Have you seen a headline like that recently? Not only did I see it in my Facebook feed, I heard morning show DJs talking about the issue. That makes it real right?!
As a teacher, I have spent countless hours coaching students to validate information. Look at the website address. Investigate the author. Beware of adds. Research the mission of the of the website. In short - do your research.
When the delicious chocolate, peanut butter treat was threatened in headlines and when challenged to determine "real or fake" by Dan Russell's November 2015 blog post, "Fake or real? How do you know?", I followed my own advice. I let Google do the interrogation.
 |
| Szerelmi gyilkosságok (3. évad) by Lwp Kommunikacio. Made available by CC by 2.0 |
I read blogs of others on the search to answer the challenge posted by Russell (2015). I opened web search results to determine whether I could trust the source. I researched authors. I dug and read and researched. And in the end, I fell back on my math/science background (you can't prove theories true you can only prove them to be false). I determined that all signs supported the artifacts as fakes.
A healthy dose of skepticism a day keeps the frauds away.
In fair disclosure, I incorrectly surmised that a quote attribution to Thomas Jefferson was fake. In a numbers game, however, 7 out of 8 is a decent rating when tallying the number of times I was misled by online content.
So my takeaway to share? HURRY - go buy those Reese's Peanut Butter Cups! Not because they are going to disappear from shelves, but because in this world of fake news and Photoshop, you are going to need some sustenance to fuel you while you research to uncover the truth.
 |
| A Reese's Peanut Butter Cup, Big Cup. by Evan-Amos. Made available by Wikimedia Commons CC0 1.0 |
Russell, Dan (2001.November, 11) Fake or real? How do you know? [Blog post]. Retrieved from: http://searchresearch1.blogspot.com/2015/11/search-challenge-111115-fake-or-real.html
What a great post! Thank goodness we still have Reese's :)
ReplyDeleteHa! A world without Reese's is no world for me!
Delete