There's a plethora of mis- and disinformation online, about everything from COVID-19 to the invasion of Ukraine.
Every day, fact-checkers like me are tasked with determining what's real and what's not.
Here's a basic toolkit for doing some of that yourself. Remember: If in doubt, don't share it out.
As millions of Ukrainian refugees have flooded through their country's borders, so too have false claims and rumors inundated the internet. Falsehoods continue to spread online like digital wildfire, and it's become the responsibility of people like me, a fact-checker at Snopes, to douse the flames with accuracy.
In the aftermath of Russia's initial attack on Ukraine, the Snopes editorial team has seen a steady uptick in false or misleading information shared online, particularly when it comes to mislabeled or outdated imagery posturing as new or relevant. From the "Ghost of Kyiv" video (which was created using a digital-simulation game) to a clip that claimed to show Russian and Ukrainian soldiers dancing together (even though the footage predated the 2022 conflict), our newsroom has ramped up efforts to identify falsehoods online.
Many social media platforms have initiated campaigns against misinformation. Following the Russian invasion of Ukraine, YouTube announced it would remove videos "denying, minimizing, or trivializing" the conflict. Facebook has led contentious campaigns to battle falsehoods online, while Instagram has started flagging posts with misinformation.
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Turkish base fake news in Armenia For several days, a video has been circulating on social media claiming that Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan allegedly signed a “secret agreement” with EU ...