SACRAMENTO, Calif. — How can I avoid being a victim of misinformation?
Kim Nalder: Keep an open mind and realize that you might be seeing misinformation even from your great aunt who posted it on Facebook. It may be something that’s even planted on purpose to try and mislead you. That awareness alone helps you not absorb it.
There are lots of ways to figure out if something might be fake. One is that they try to appeal to emotions. So they try and appeal to your partisanship in particular. So if it feels too good, like partisan-wise, if it feels too good, that’s a red flag. Or if it’s too extreme, that’s a red flag.
Is there a simple tool I can use to detect misinformation?
Nalder: If you see a story, check it out to see if it’s in other sources. If there’s just one source for that story, it’s probably not legitimate. Because if it is, media organizations are very eager to pick it up and get going on that big story if it really is a big story.
What’s a common misinformation trap?
Nalder: When the story or the account will say something like, ‘They don’t want you to know this’ or, ‘I’m letting you in on a secret.’ That sort of talk is almost always false, right? Because it really appeals to our emotions and to our sense that we want to be insiders or maybe our cynicism about media in general. But anything that contains that kind of content that you know they don’t want you to know or the other side, that demonization too, that’s a really big red flag. That’s when you should realize this is probably not legit.