Fighting fake news with digital skills
Once upon a time, our news came from two main sources: print and broadcast. Now, thanks to Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, anyone can publish news. Social media offers a powerful platform for normal people to create and share things that are important to them. Unfortunately, in this brave new world of online publishing, many unsuspecting users are failing to differentiate fact from fiction.
Social media is smart — it knows what we like to read and watch. Through clever algorithms it calculates what content is relevant to our interests and fires it in our direction. If you always click on stuff about Star Wars on Facebook then, sure enough, the site will suggest more Star Wars content for you to look at. The same goes for news. If you read and watch political or current affairs news content, Facebook’s algorithms will automatically give you similar content to look at.
Alas, not all the news content we see on our social media walls is verifiable and has even been accused of misleading public opinion. Unsubstantiated claims made via social media are being taken at face value, simply because the content is presented as news. Such is the ‘fake news’ problem.
Sites as large as Facebook or YouTube could not possibly have the manpower to verify all content posted to their site. Facebook now offers an alert function on news articles that have been disputed by two or more reputable news sources. But content can be shared regardless of whether claims are based in reality, allowing fake news to spread like fire with each click and share more fuel to its flame. Ultimately, it’s the individual’s responsibility to tell the difference and starve the hoaxers of attention. That means users need to know what to look for.
Unfortunately, many lack the digital skills to do so. Lloyds Bank’s latest Consumer Digital Index found, for example, 15% of UK citizens were unable to verify sources of information found online. This shortfall of online critical thinking skills is disturbing, especially in the UK, where we pride ourselves on our patriotic cynicism.
But let’s not lose sight — social media has undeniably been a good thing. It allows us to organise events, share interesting stories, keep up with current affairs in real time and so on. But it also means anyone with a false agenda and an internet connection can dupe their audiences with fiction, largely because there’s nothing to lose.
Journalists personally stake their professional reputation as a credible news source to gain their readership’s (and editor’s) trust. By and large we believe their facts are correct, verifiable and support their conclusions. Non-journalists, however, are free to make unsubstantiated claims, generally without reproach. Surely it is vital that the digital citizen can differentiate between the two.
In a survey by teaching union NASUWT on wider issues around social media and abuse, 35% of the teachers polled reported pupils citing obviously fake news or false information sourced online. The findings emphasise the need for all from a young age to attain and develop online problem solving skills — a key basic digital skill and pillar of of Get Digital’s basic digital skills framework.
Thankfully, industry is taking a lead in helping young people tell fact from fiction and teach online responsibility. Technology companies such as Google are now working to tackle this problem with in-platform and in-site disclaimers about fake news. These programmes are a great to have but we need to be doing more to stop fake news in its tracks. Flagging disputed news articles where they arise is only part of the solution — social media users need the basic digital skills to spot fake news.
By Matthew Oliver, Tech Partnership
To find out more about Tech Partnership’s Get Digital initiative, follow @get_digital on Twitter and visit www.thetechpartnership.com/basic-digital-skills for more information about the Get Digital initiative.
