I recently encountered a story on KOIN 6 news that stated that an article about an earthquake had created a frenzy on social media. The article talked of an “event” in the Cascadia Subduction Zone and, after getting thousands of retweets and shares, caused people to panic that a big earthquake had struck in the Pacific Ocean.
The article turned out to be false and there was nothing to worry about for the time being, but many people took this article as fact and shared it without giving it a second thought. Instances like this happen all the time on the Internet when anyone with a computer can post anything and call it the truth.
When I checked out the false article by SuperStation95, immediately upon loading there were ads all over the page and it was constantly prompting me to refresh. This would have been my first signal that it was clearly a not a reliable source.
As I continued to read, I could tell how this website had sent tons of people into a fear-craze. The article claimed that there had been a recent drop in sea level off the Oregon coast, and that this meant that the Juan de Fuca fault line had slipped underneath the North American fault line which in turn, would bring about an earthquake.
Although there were no authoritative sources, the information along with maps and other graphics looked pretty legit, but all it took was a quick fact check to clarify what was being said. Looking back through KOIN 6 news, one could see they had interviewed a Portland meteorologist and received a statement from that National Weather Service. Both sources claimed that drops like these were normal fluctuations that happen multiple times a day.
Clearly, you can’t believe everything you hear, see or read. Of course there are always ways to sniff out the reliable sources from the unreliable ones. Many Internet users are either just too lazy to do any real research or don’t know how to clarify what kind of sites are trustworthy.
This was not the first time this kind of thing had happened. Several reports are made every year about things that supposedly happened, but just turned out to be completely false. Esquire posted a list of the worst Internet hoaxes of 2015 and the Washington Post shows the worst from 2014. Some of these rumors were simply fueled by false reports on social media, but others were started by fake news sites.
While there are many fake news sites, it is important to know which sites are meant to be satirical and which are just trying to get views by being misleading. Some of the more popular satirical sites that you can count as unreliable are The Onion, Private Eye, The Daily Currant, CAP News and The National Report.
These websites are credited as reliable sources everyday by diverse groups of people, but they are known satirical news sites. Constantly people fall victim to their lack of fact checking and believe false news.
When checking the credibility of a news website, you have to first ensure who the speaker is. Make sure there is credit given to some sort of author and not just to the entire “newsroom.” Any real newsroom producing accurate content will have the author, or authors, specified for accountability.
Make sure that the “facts” aren’t just being thrown around. When reading articles you should be able to see where the facts are coming. Direct quotes from authoritative sources and links to outside research are good signs of reliability.
In this age, anything can essentially be placed on the internet whether it be true or false, but that doesn’t mean that you have to fall into any traps or internet schemes. If you surf online as a fully-armed fact finder, sniffing out true information won’t be so hard.