How to Spot and Report Fake News on Social Media

I've written a number of times about fake news including this post on how to recognize fake news on social media. It's an important subject because there's so much of it.

The first rule is to be sure information comes from a trustworthy site. Well-known sites are one thing, but there are many sites today reporting interesting news that individuals may not be personally familiar with. I use a browser extension called NewsGuard. It maintains a list of trusted sites and shows a green check by search results for those sites. Users can submit other sites for consideration. The important caveat is that it evaluates the site, not the individual news item. It is helpful, but certainly not a complete answer. Users still have to be on the alert.

https://www.factcheck.org/2016/12/video-spotting-fake-news/

So here are some resources. FactCheck.org is run by the Annenberg Public Policy Center; the site owner is one of the keys to trustworthiness. It has a video as shown in the graphic. The site's post on the subject is a couple of years old, but all its points are still valid. FactCheck.org is one of the fact checkers working with Facebook to identify false news. I wish them luck, but without a lot of optimism.

It would certainly help if users themselves pointed out suspect content. Here are three sites you might want to consider using:

Facebook:  Users can check the validity of a post before they share it. How often that is helpful depends on the success of Facebook's own attempts to identify fake content. Users can ask Facebook to investigate content. Facebook says users can check the status of their request.

Google: The help page says the user can see fact checks in search results. It also says that the fact checks are conducted by publishers and it sounds as if that means a site fact-checking its own content. That doesn't seem to be the meaning. The fact-checked search results I can find have been checked by one of the established fact checking sites. That means the fact checks are credible but it also means that only s small set of politically-oriented content is included. Try some searches for statements that are frequently presented as fact and see what you find.

The Poynter Institute points out that Google is building a search engine for fact checks. It is still in beta and I doubt if anyone except a journalist is going to get access at present. If it works and is opened to the public it would be a step forward.

YouTube: The site has been adding encyclopedia links to videos that seem to promote conspiracy theories. Slate has an article that explains pros and cons and shows an example. I can't find anything recent on how that's going or whether it plans to add other topics.

That's a short and not very inspiring look at the current status of fact-checking, especially on social media sites. Much remains to be done before users should share with any degree of confidence unless they have other sources to validate social media posts.

If you have any experience using any of these tools and sites, your comments would be welcome.

Stay Safe!

What is Phishing and How To Spot It

The blog Phishing.org defines phishing as

a cybercrime in which a target or targets are contacted by email, telephone or text message by someone posing as a legitimate institution to lure individuals into providing sensitive data such as personally identifiable information, banking and credit card details, and passwords.






We've all been exposed to phishing emails. It's easy to be taken in by them, although it is also possible to avoid them with a little knowledge and effort. The phishing scammers are getting more sophisticated but fortunately the basic rules for spotting these scams still work in most instances. This graphic has a lot of good advice.

https://www.knowbe4.com/what-is-social-engineering/

Notice that the graphic contains advice for business email users, not just personal ones. If you use email at work, please pay attention! This advice is related to another common fraud called spear phishing. That's an attempt to get insider information from a business--information like email addresses of top executives or access to customer data. Sometimes the data will be used directly, as in an order from the CEO to transfer money to a fraudulent account. At other times it will be used to breach the system and install malware, permitting long-term damage. In any event, this post focuses on the personal email user.

The basic advice for spotting phishing emails is:

1. If it sounds too good to be true, it undoubtedly is.
2. It is urgent; the recipient will miss out unless she responds immediately.
3. It asks for personal information. Never reply to this type of email, even if (especially if) it purports to be from an institution like the IRS or your bank. Never. Period. Don't even confirm personal information sent to you in an email.
4. The sender is unknown or looks fishy (pun intended :).
5. There are hyperlinks that look strange--don't match the sender, for example. It's best not to even click on these links to check them out.
6. It's poorly written with spelling and grammatical errors or awkward sentence structure.
7. It has an attachment. Don't even bother to examine the attachment closely--if the email is in any way suspicious don't open the attachment. Malware lives there.
8. WHEN IN DOUBT, JUST DELETE IT. 

The chances you are going to ignore a legitimate email that has any of these characteristics is pretty low. However, it you're a worrier, pick up the phone and call the supposed sender. That's safe!

All legitimate internet businesses are concerned about phishing; it makes the internet less trustworthy for all of us. Google has performed an excellent service with this exercise in spotting phishing emails. Use the link provided and give it a try!

https://phishingquiz.withgoogle.com/

Don't worry about being embarrassed by naivete. I missed a rather humiliating number of the 10-item quiz and Google was very nice about it!

Take the quiz and stay safe!

Excellent Short Video on Protecting Personal Data

This video has good versions of the normal advice about protecting your data. It ends with a very strong common sense section that everyone needs to follow. It is at the end of an article in Inc magazine.

I can't find an embed link or that it has been published elsewhere--not particularly good marketing practice!

Stay safe!