Fake news literacy may be taught in schools

I didn't want to hijack the millennial survival skills thread for this. But, a the age of the internet means a new critical skill that have nothing to do with shelter and fire. The ability to accurately distinguish between facts, spin, and outright falsehoods on the internet.

There are two California congresscritters who have introduced bills to teach media literacy as part of social sciences in grade school

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/if-state-lawmakers-have-their-way-california-schoolchildren-may-be-taught-how-to-spot-%e2%80%98fake-news%e2%80%99/ar-AAlNY8




Sen. Bill Dodd (D): SB-135

Assemblyman Jimmy Gomez (D): AB-155

Good topic but can easily go political; with that in mind... As long as the education involves how to discern fact from opinion/hype/spin, it could be a good course for many adults, let alone grades 7-12.

I'm hoping it doesn't go political too. As is no secret, fact checking is my proverbial "Hill to die on". Getting John Q. Public the skillset to critically analyze what he's being told is desperately needed to avoid acting on bad information.

The problem with this course will be having an instructor who can teach how to determine fact without imposing "what" is a fact. One of my pet peeves is presumptuousness by people who think they know something but don't. A presumptuousness of people who think something is settled and ...this is going political right here so I'll stop.

I know that these kinds of skills re "discerning the quality of information on the Internet" are part of the elementary curriculum up here. And so they should be.

The recent fake news issues in your recent election notches up the urgency for all of us. A lot of fake news wasn't even deliberately cooked by one side or the other -- it was simply click-bait, manufactured by "entrepreneurs" around the world who get paid by the click. They can say anything, without any consequences. They will not go away: it's easy money. With the fragmentation of Internet news distribution, discernment skills are absolutely critical IMO.

http://f.tqn.com/y/history1900s/1/W/Y/Q/1/DeweyDefeatsTruman.jpg

I think we can discuss critical thinking without going political.Let's just stick to survival issues, where there is a certain amount of hogwash floating around. Just for one, consider (Un)Bear(able) Grylls various silly stunts, like drinking urine. In terms of rational survival practices, this is a lot of hooey and will lead to a bad outcome.

But you saw it on TV and it's discussed on the internet! We have always needed the ability to think critically, evaluate information, and consider the reliability of the source, especially how biased the source might be. Like so much of our increasingly wired world, the pace has quickened, and one needs to be up to speed.


fake news isn't new,but it is spread much faster by the electronic manure spreaders, gen 4.0, with which we now contend.

Actually. Checking things against a predetermined list of "facts" is closer to dogma than critical thinking. Let me give you an example:

"According to a study" First of all, what exact study? Run it down. Is the study relevant to the article ? Was it rigorous or was it pseudoscience advertising. The same reasoning can also be applied to "they said","this happened", etc. Is it independently verifiable? Is it relevant? What was the context in which it was said or happened?

Another technique is to run down the original source . For example, news site XYZ is qquoting news site IJK. Where is IJK located? An IP address in the Balkans or the Former Soviet Republics for an "American" news service is going to be suspect. A post on social media, or a site with an obvious spin, isn't worth much either.

I remember being a university student and we would always need to have sources for any fact we would say and those sources need to be proper scientific publication, which is relevant and recongized by the specific field of science.

As for political fake news, to me the way the headlines generally shouts is already a red flag...

The internet has been around a while and I'm not sure how someone would go about verifying the "real" news. It sounds like someone doesn't like what the "fake" news is saying. I think it would be more useful (and less likely to become political) to teach informal logic courses which help in critical thinking.

Any course should include logical reasoning and something on challenging assumptions. When someone says something to the effect that "if we assume that ... yada yada yada" -- Is that basic assumption realistic or true? At times I've heard an assumption espoused that was not a fact, but given as a starting point, it could logically lead someone down a fictitious path to a logically correct but nonetheless wrong conclusion.

I have pretty much turned into a skeptic on anything presented as news or journalism. This is a relatively new thing for me overall. People have to become students of language/vocabulary use. There are so many things that you can pick up just by listening doing to the vocabulary and construction of sentences.

I do like that it was mentioned that people need to really dig into "the sources". The problem we see is what someone mentioned - "according to recent studies/research blah blah blah". Never is the source given. To me, then, it means it is unreliable and highly suspect. When I was my latest master's studies, I just made a statement that seemed to be harmless and a ubiquitous known. I said that multiple-choice testing is the most widely used form of testing. Well, the professor grading the paper intimated that he agreed with the sentiment. His beef was that it was a statement of authority. As I was not a recognized authority on the subject, I needed to reword the sentence and give some sources that would support the statement. While I knew what the guy was saying, it just let my guard down and got a little rushed in the moment. Lesson: dig for the resources; reliable ones.

Great thread.

There is a great deal of literature about the media and how we consume it. One thing that needs to be understood is how the business of the media works and what the influences on it are. It is a business, and it is run by people who are trying to earn a living (among other things). Good critical thinking skills and an understanding of how influence works will contribute much to one's being a more intelligent consumer of the media.

Yup, that falls in line with being a skeptic and really listening to what is being said. I find that the shorter the actual quote or sound/video clip, the less value of the report is and the higher the agenda/propaganda value. Context matters.

You check the sources, keeping in mind the reliability of each source. If a newspaper says X, where does it get this information from? Persons A, B, and C? Then check to make sure they actually said it. It's a sort of detective work.

Good one.

The most important word in; 'A study proves....' is the word 'A'. One study of anything proves nothing.

Two useful sites:

Factchecker:

http://www.factcheck.org/

Snopes:

http://www.snopes.com/

qjs

Fact checking, having a degree of critical reasoning, etc. are all good, but fake news succeeds because it says something you really want to be true. It may not be the specific (fake) events reported, but certain it appeals to the underlying worldview/deeply-held beliefs. That's the hardest part to fight. It's confirmation bias and more. Seeing the fake news disproved can feel like your worldview is getting attacked. That's why many people double down when confronted with fact checking.

To take the example of urine-drinking or unrealistic survival shows, many people (with little or no outdoors experience) believe that survival is about taking desperate, dangerous, physically, and possible mentally revolting exhausting measures. Common-sensical stuff like "stop, collect yourself, check the map that you've obviously brought with you" just doesn't make as deep of an impression as rappelling down the side of a mountain or, yes, drinking your own urine. This is a sort of confirmation bias at work.

Similarly, many think about fighting off the "bad guys" when it comes to survival. That's why some internet discussions about survival center around caliber and firearm choice. Some people have a bug out list that has like 40 lbs of firearms and ammo and an insufficient amount of food and water. Again, this sort of stuff responds to something psychological.

Alright, so these survival examples aren't as good as political ones, but we don't talk about politics here. Developing the ability to effectively assess and process information that contradicts the way you look at things is incredibly valuable. Most people don't have it, and we end up with more urine in the news than is decent for civilized company.

This is something overlooked in schools and colleges. Logic has a structure that needs to be taught. Also, there are many logical fallacies that people should be aware of. I see logical fallacies being used very frequently in reporting and opinion pieces---and I feel that the people using them are totally unaware that they are using them. Wikipedia has a good list---I bet that even in a quick scan of the list will reveal several that you have seen or heard recently: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fallacies

Shouldn't logical reasoning be part and parcel of education in general, at all levels? I thought it used to be....

"Logic (101?) was one of the of the first courses I took in college; it was taught in the Philosophy Department. It formalized reasoning skills into mathematical expressions.
The course wasn't difficult, but so many in the press seem to have missed out on basic reasoning skills, maybe those skills are difficult for some -- all the more reason to teach in a formal course. Maybe it should be a required course for all Journalism majors.

Regardless, logic is timeless and should be a basic requirement of any curriculum.

I took the same course. But, I've gotten more use out of it as a technical trouble shooting technique then dissecting speeches and articles. I found I got more use out of the English Dept.'s Critical Reasoning and Writing course when pulling apart. I think I still have the textbook "A Rhetoric or Argument" on my bookshelf.