Fake news reared its head again recently among legitimate reports of “protestors” looting and damaging businesses and disrupting highways and business operations in almost all provinces.
Many people lost their lives in the unrest and businesses are still cleaning up to try to rebuild.
In an article by Caxton’s group legal advisor, Helene Viljoen (née Eloff), she stated fake news has become a buzzword in the past few years and is a term that refers to untrue information dressed as news.
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The South African National Editors’ Forum prefers the terms ‘misinformation’ and ‘disinformation’. The former describes the negligent or accidental distribution of untrue statements as news. The latter refers to the intentional and malicious spreading of such content.
Viljoen advised that before endorsing or sharing a news link, you need to do the following:
1. Vet the credibility of the site publishing it. Is it a credible site? Does it have many followers? What does Google say about the site?
2. Keep an eye out for odd domain names.
3. Does the ‘news’ drive a political or social agenda? If so, be careful. News should be unbiased and objective.
4. Who is the author? What does Google say about the author? Does he or she seem credible?
5. What do other publications say about the story you are reading?
6. Does the story you are reading feature comments from credible sources or official spokespeople? If not, this could be indicative of a fake news story.
7. Check the date. Fake news sites sometimes recycle old content masquerading as fake news.
8. If you have doubts, save the photos from the story you are reading and perform a reverse image search on Google to determine where the photos come from. Fake news sites sometimes steal photos from the web and embed these into misleading stories.
9. Visit a fact-checking website to determine if you are dealing with news, misinformation or disinformation. Africacheck is a great example.
10. Never share information if you cannot attest to its veracity.
