Centre for Information Integrity

"Fake News," Lies and Propaganda: How to Sort Fact from Fiction

“Fake news” is a term that has come to mean different things to different people. At its core, we are defining “fake news” as those news stories that are false: the story itself is fabricated, with no verifiable facts, sources or quotes. Sometimes these stories may be propaganda that is intentionally designed to mislead the reader, or may be designed as “clickbait” written for economic incentives (the writer profits on the number of people who click on the story). In recent years, fake news stories have proliferated via social media, in part because they are so easily and quickly shared online.

2024: the election year of deepfakes, doubts and disinformation?

 7/1/2024

Onfido

Aled Owen

2024 is the year of elections. It’s estimated more than 2 billion voters will take to the polls this year across 50 countries, including the US, the UK, India, as well as the European Union. But a climate of doubt and disinformation threatens to overshadow 2024’s elections. Many voters already harbor growing skepticism about political content published online. Results from a recent UK-wide survey reveal that 23% of Brits no longer trust any political content they see on social media, and 29% only trust political content published from a verified source such as an official news outlet*. Given this growing skepticism around the legitimacy of political content, generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) and deepfakes have the potential to make this year’s election cycles unpredictable.

5 tips to identify fake news and misinformation

Altering the information spread through mass media, whether intentionally (disinformation) or unintentionally (misinformation), is not a new practice. However, misinformation and disinformation have been fuelled by digital technologies in the past decades, thanks to the rapid growth of digital media, online news outlets, and social networks. The spread of fake news online has become a major issue. Tech is catching up and new tools for identifying fake news are being developed. Besides, there are also steps you can take to identify fake news.

A Beginner's Guide to Social Media Verification

The following guide seeks to explain how we can be vigilant about the videos and photos we see online while identifying those that contain misleading, misattributed or false information. Verification doesn’t need to be difficult. It also doesn’t require any complicated algorithms or access to advanced tools or programs that automatically detect whether an image may be fake or manipulated. A critical mindset and a close look at the context of an image or post, allied with simple tools such as a Google search or reverse image platforms, are often all it takes to discover whether a piece of content is genuine. As this guide looks at some of the first steps for uncovering misinformation and disinformation, it is not fully comprehensive....A list of further resources will be included at the bottom of this article.

A Guide to Misinformation: How to Spot and Combat Fake News

Social media has had a dramatic impact on the ways we interact with one another. Social media platforms have connected us to one another in new and impactful ways. Stories and opinions can gain exposure with unprecedented speed, giving individuals around the globe continuous access to a near-real-time conversation about both important and trivial matters. With the increasing popularity of a wide variety of internet-enabled devices and advanced mobile internet speeds, more and more people are getting involved with social media. Indeed, two-thirds of all U.S. adults use it, and many of us get our news through posts made on social media networks. Unfortunately, there is a dark side to social media: fake news. Misinformation can influence users, manipulating them for political or economic reasons. How can you spot fake news, and what can you do to combat it? This guide will provide a comprehensive view of the subject and give you the tools you’ll need to address this burgeoning issue.

A guide to pre-bunking: a promising way to inoculate against misinformation

Understanding how pre-bunks work (and how they don’t) is essential for reporters, fact checkers, policy-makers and platforms.

BBC: Beyond Fake News

Trusted News Initiative

How news organisations can rebuild trust and tackle the next disinformation challenges. The BBC's Trusted News Initiative is a partnership that includes organisations such as First Draft, Google/YouTube, Twitter, Reuters, Meta and The Washington Post. It is the only forum in the world of its kind designed to take on disinformation in real time.

Belingcat: A Beginner's Guide to Social Media Verification

The following guide seeks to explain how we can be vigilant about the videos and photos we see online while identifying those that contain misleading, misattributed or false information. Verification doesn’t need to be difficult. It also doesn’t require any complicated algorithms or access to advanced tools or programs that automatically detect whether an image may be fake or manipulated.

Beware Fake News

Break free from misinformation in an escape room (Video clip)

 6/14/2022

Center for an Informed Public

Our mission is to resist strategic misinformation, promote an informed society, and strengthen democratic discourse. A research project of the University of Washington‘s Center for an Informed Public in partnership with the UW Technology & Social Change Group, UW GAMER Research Group and Puzzle Break, immerse people in an interactive escape room of manipulated media, social media bots, deep fakes, and other forms of deception to learn about misinformation. These games are designed to improve people’s awareness of misinformation tactics and generate reflection on the emotional triggers and psychological biases that make misinformation so powerful.

Combating Information Manipulation: A Playbook for Elections and Beyond

Dealing with information manipulation around an election is a new and unfamiliar phenomenon for many countries. Civil society actors, journalists, governments, election management bodies and other democratic actors often end up scrambling to respond in the lead-up to an election. To address this challenge, IRI, NDI and SIO have joined forces to create this playbook, intended to help leapfrog the first six months of the electoral preparation process. The playbook lays out the basics of the problem and the core elements of a response, and points to trusted resources for those looking to do a deeper dive into a particular type of intervention or threat. We hope this playbook will enable you and everyone dedicated to defending democracy to push back against efforts that undermine free and fair political competition. Since information manipulation is an ongoing challenge, this playbook will also be useful outside of an election cycle.

Consumer Reports: On Social Media, Only Some Lies Are Against the Rules

Your guide to every major social media company's misinformation policies on vital topics from COVID-19 to voting. Social media companies say they want to limit dangerous falsehoods while also protecting free speech. But the platforms’ rules on misinformation vary widely. And their policies are often “confusing, unclear, or contradictory,” according to Bill Fitzgerald, a privacy and technology researcher in CR’s Digital Lab.

Course: Mind Over Misinformation

American Psychological Association

Have you ever wondered why some people believe in things that aren't exactly true, and even share those things widely? Well, it's all about understanding the psychological phenomena that make us prone to believing and spreading misinformation, the clever tactics used by its creators, and how our media and political landscape today help it go viral. The good news? Psychological scientists have come up with smart ways to tackle and debunk this misinformation. "Mind Over Misinformation" is a series of short online modules packed with the methods they've developed and tested to help stop misinformation in its tracks.

Data misuse and disinformation: Technology and the 2022 elections

 6/1/2022

Brookings

Samantha Lai

Digital platforms, massive data collection, and increasingly sophisticated software create new ways for bad actors to generate and spread convincing disinformation and misinformation at potentially massive scales, disproportionately hurting marginalized communities. With the 2022 midterm elections around the corner, it is important to revisit how emerging technologies serve to suppress voting rights, and how the U.S. is going about the protection of such democratic ideals.

Democratic National Committee (DNC) Recommendations for Combating Online Disinformation

The DNC is working with major social media companies to combat platform manipulation and train our campaigns on how best to secure their accounts and protect their brands against disinformation. While progress has been made since the 2016 elections, social media companies still have much to do to reduce the spread of disinformation and combat malicious activity. Social media companies are ultimately responsible for combating abuse and disinformation on their systems, but as an interested party, we’ve compiled this comparative policy analysis to present social media companies with additional potential solutions.

EU: SHARP DISINFORMATION TOOL

 10/24/2022

Europe Diplomatic

“Today, East Stratcom Task Force is adding another tool that anyone could use to understand the threat better and to defend themselves against it. The EUvsDisinfo website, the EU’s first project raising awareness of disinformation, has been enriched with a new “Learn” section euvsdisinfo.eu/learn/. “This page explains the mechanisms, tactics, common narratives and actors behind disinformation and information manipulation. It offers insights into the pro-Kremlin media ecosystem, and also explains the philosophy behind foreign information manipulation and interference. The readers can also find easy response technics that anyone can apply, and afterwards they can practise their newly acquired skills through quizzes and games”.

Guidelines for the Governance of Digital Platforms

 5/1/2024

UNESCO

Safeguarding freedom of expression and the right to information while dealing with dis- and misinformation, hate speech, and conspiracy theories requires a multistakeholder approach. This is the reason why UNESCO, the leading UN agency for the promotion and protection of freedom of expression and to information, is launching Guidelines for the Governance of Digital Platforms. The Guidelines outline a set of duties, responsibilities and roles for States, digital platforms, intergovernmental organizations, civil society, media, academia, the technical community and other stakeholders to enable the environment where freedom of expression and information are in the core of digital platforms governance processes.

Helping Election Officials Combat Misinformation in 2024: An Updated Course from CDT and CTCL

Center for Democracy & Technology

Isabel Linzer, Tim Harper

Election officials face an increasingly demanding set of responsibilities, from protecting their systems from cybersecurity threats to managing and responding to emergencies. At the same time, election officials increasingly report facing threats and harassment, often motivated by mis- and disinformation, which may be contributing to increasing turnover rates. These challenges are compounded by limited budgets for training staff on new and emerging threats.

How do you solve a problem like misinformation?

Understanding key distinctions between misinformation/disinformation, speech/action, and mistaken belief/conviction provides an opportunity to expand research and policy toward more constructive online communication.

How podcasts have become misinformation machines — and what can be done about it

 8/21/2022

Global News

Rachel Gilmore

There seems to be a podcast for every interest — from true crime, to fashion, to sports. But as podcasts have exploded in popularity, some are becoming machines for spreading misinformation, experts in the subject warn. “The proliferation of a bunch of these podcasts touting everything from COVID-19 misinformation to pro-Russian propaganda to just general sort of far-right agitation, it’s exploded in recent years,” said Justin Ling, a freelance investigative journalist who covers disinformation and extremism.

How to fight misinformation in the post-truth era

 11/17/2022

PHYS Org. Central European University

The article also touches upon the question of the future usage of AI and the fear that it may be used to produce disinformation in the future. "The institutions of epistemic vigilance are indeed challenged by digitization. Perhaps the solution lies in digitization too, in programming AI to curate reliable information based on the principles of epistemic vigilance," the authors claim. In conclusion, history tells us that institutions that deliver reliable information are fragile, and there is no straightforward strategy to repair them. Szegofi and Heintz believe that while it is not certain that we will have institutions of epistemic vigilance in the future, it is worth saving them, as they allow for us to trust.

How to identify misinformation, disinformation, and malinformation

 5/1/2024

Government of Canada

The effects of misinformation, disinformation and malinformation (MDM) cost the global economy billions of dollars each year. Often known colloquially as “fake news,” MDM is damaging to public trust in institutions and, during elections, may even pose a threat to democracy itself. This document offers consumers and organizations information on identifying MDM and implementing the appropriate security measures to counter it.

How to report misinformation online

As the world responds to the COVID-19 pandemic, we face the challenge of an overabundance of information related to the virus. Some of this information may be false and potentially harmful. Inaccurate information spreads widely and at speed, making it more difficult for the public to identify verified facts and advice from trusted sources, such as their local health authority or WHO. However, everyone can help to stop the spread. If you see content online that you believe to be false or misleading, you can report it to the hosting social media platform.

How to spot fake news: Identifying propaganda, satire, and false information

 4/25/2025

SFU Library

Whether it's "insidious confusion," quackery, spin, disinformation, misinformation, or just a misunderstanding, there is a lot of false information out there. Here are some strategies for identifying it.

How to Spot False Information: How to Fact Check

 5/1/2024

Media Smarts

To help Canadians develop the search, authentication and critical thinking skills that are needed in the digital age, MediaSmarts and Facebook Canada have partnered together to develop the Reality Check! program. Over the course of this two-year public awareness and education initiative, we will be developing a series of videos, tip sheets and activities that will give Canadians of all ages the tools they need to verify different kinds of online information and to help them understand why it’s important to double-check before they share information online.

How to spot online deception

 5/24/2023

HP

Anna-Marie Brittain

Taking preventative measures is the best way to combat misinformation and false news. That means learning how to spot untrustworthy information using effective source evaluation methods. This guide provides practical tips to understanding key issues in disinformation and misinformation, exploring such themes as: societal impacts, how to spot disinformation, misinformation on social media, and the influences of fake news.

Image Provenance Analysis for Disinformation Detection

Composite images are the outcome of combining pieces extracted from two or more other images, sometimes with the intent to deceive the observer and convey false narratives. Consider an image suspected of being a composite, and a large corpus of images that might have donated pieces to the composite (such as photos from social media. In this conversation, we will discuss our most recent advances in provenance analysis, concluding with our latest endeavours towards extending it to unveil disinformation campaigns. Video of event included in this site. Speakers: Walter Scheirer, Dennis O. Doughty Collegiate Associate Professor, University of Notre Dame Daniel Moreira, Incoming Assistant Professor, Loyola University

Infodemic

 6/20/2022

World Economic Forum

An infodemic is too much information including false or misleading information in digital and physical environments during a disease outbreak. It causes confusion and risk-taking behaviours that can harm health. It also leads to mistrust in health authorities and undermines the public health response. An infodemic can intensify or lengthen outbreaks when people are unsure about what they need to do to protect their health and the health of people around them. With growing digitization – an expansion of social media and internet use – information can spread more rapidly. This can help to more quickly fill information voids but can also amplify harmful messages. This page also includes list of resources, guides, information sheets, tools, etc.

Is AI the only antidote to disinformation?

 7/20/2022

World Economic Forum

The stability of our society is more threatened by disinformation than anything else we can imagine. It is a pandemic that has engulfed small and large economies alike. People around the world face threats to life and personal safety because of the volumes of emotionally charged and socially divisive pieces of misinformation, much of it fuelled by emerging technology. This content either manipulates the perceptions of people or propagates absolute falsehoods in society.

Journalism, Fake News and Disinformation: Handbook for Journalism Education & Training

UNESCO works to strengthen journalism education, and this publication is the latest offering in a line of cutting-edge knowledge resources. It is part of the “Global Initiative for Excellence in Journalism Education,” which is a focus of UNESCO’s International Programme for the Development of Communication (IPDC). The initiative seeks to engage with teaching, practising and researching of journalism from a global perspective, including sharing international good practices. Accordingly, the current handbook seeks to serve as an internationally relevant model curriculum, open to adoption or adaptation, which responds to the emerging global problem of disinformation that confronts societies in general, and journalism in particular.

Meta, TikTok, and Twitter Hope to Fight Election Misinformation. Experts Say Their Plans Aren’t Enough

 8/18/2022

Time Magazine

Nik Popli

With less than three months from the U.S. midterm elections, social media companies are preparing for another intense fight against misinformation. TikTok, Meta, and Twitter say they’re ready for the challenge this time, and they’ve each drafted a similar playbook that includes more fact-checking, labelling misinformation more carefully and adding more restrictions on political advertising. But experts who study social media and politics point out that these new policies aren’t that different from those in place in 2020—which could have consequences, since video content may play a larger role in the spread of misinformation this year.

Mis and Disinformation

OECD

Information poses significant risks to the well-being of people and society. While such content is not necessarily illegal, it can contribute to polarisation, jeopardise the implementation of policies, and undermine trust in democratic institutions and processes. Action is required to strengthen the integrity of information spaces to protect freedom of expression and democratic engagement.

Mis- and Disinformation.

 10/1/2024

OECD

The spread of false and misleading information poses significant risks to the well-being of people and society. While such content is not necessarily illegal, it can contribute to polarisation, jeopardise the implementation of policies, and undermine trust in democratic institutions and processes. Action is required to strengthen the integrity of information spaces to protect freedom of expression and democratic engagement.

Newmark J Research Fact Checking & Verification for Reporting: Social Media Verification

Verification of content and sources: Ensures the accuracy of your stories Helps you avoid amplifying fabricated news & propaganda Adds context, detail, history & transparency to your stories. Helps you find clues & corroborating evidence to verify images, videos, and information.

News: Fake News, Misinformation & Disinformation

Sorting through the vast amount of information created and shared online is challenging even for experts. This page defines terms including and related to "fake news" while offering resources and information to avoid both reading and sharing it. The more aware you are of what false information is and how it spreads, the better you will be at avoiding it yourself - and helping your friends and family do the same.

Online Disinformation

 5/1/2023

Government of Canada

Disinformation spreads online, causing harm to Canada and Canadians. Learn how to identify and fact-check disinformation. This guide provides tips on a number of key issues in dealing with disinformation including, but not limited to how disinformation works, and fact-checking tools.

Opinion Facebook misinformation is bad enough. The metaverse will be worse.

 7/22/2022

Washington Post

Rand Waltzman

Here’s a plausible scenario that could soon take place in the metaverse, the online virtual reality environments under rapid development by Mark Zuckerberg and other tech entrepreneurs: A political candidate is giving a speech to millions of people. While each viewer thinks they are seeing the same version of the candidate, in virtual reality they are actually each seeing a slightly different version. For each and every viewer, the candidate’s face has been subtly modified to resemble the viewer.

POYNTER: A guide to anti-misinformation actions around the world

Poynter has created a guide for existing attempts to legislate against what can broadly be referred to as online misinformation. While not every law contained here relates to misinformation specifically, they’ve all often been wrapped into that broader discussion. We have attempted to label different interventions as clearly as possible.

Tackling disinformation: EU Commission steps up action among young people

 10/11/2022

Insight EU Monitoring

Today, the Commission published Guidelines for teachers and educators in primary and secondary schools, on how to address disinformation and promote digital literacy in their classrooms. The guidelines provide practical support for teachers and educators and include definitions of technical concepts, class exercises and how to encourage healthy online habits. This toolkit covers three main topics: building digital literacy, tackling disinformation, and assessing and evaluating digital literacy. Currently in Europe, one in three 13-year-old students lack basic digital skills when directly tested, and according to the OECD, only a little over half of 15-year-olds in the EU reported being taught how to detect whether information is subjective or biased. There is consequently a clear need to strengthen the role of education and training in tackling disinformation and promoting digital literacy as well as media literacy. It will increase resiliency and the possibility to fight the impact of online disinformation more effectively.

THE TOOLS TO UNDERSTAND AND RESPOND TO DISINFORMATION

EU vs Disinfo

“This page explains the mechanisms, tactics, common narratives and actors behind disinformation and information manipulation. It offers insights into the pro-Kremlin media ecosystem, and also explains the philosophy behind foreign information manipulation and interference. The readers can also find easy response technics that anyone can apply, and afterwards they can practise their newly acquired skills through quizzes and games”.

Three reasons why disinformation is so pervasive and what we can do about it

 8/12/2022

The Conversation

Mathieu O’Neil & Michael Jensen

These are in no way isolated efforts to flood the world's media with dishonest information or malicious content. Governments, organizations and individuals are spreading disinformation for profit or to gain a strategic advantage. But why is there so much disinformation? And what can we do to protect ourselves?

Verification Handbook for Disinformation and Media Manipulation

The latest edition of the Verification Handbook arrives at a critical moment. Today’s information environment is more chaotic and easier to manipulate than ever before. This book equips journalists with the knowledge to investigate social media accounts, bots, private messaging apps, information operations, deep fakes, as well as other forms of disinformation and media manipulation. The first resource of its kind, it builds on the first edition of the Verification Handbook and the Verification Handbook for Investigative Reporting. The book is published by the European Journalism Centre and supported by Craig Newmark Philanthropies.

What’s the truth behind fake news? Podcast

 4/7/2022

Ahmed Al-Rawl

“Fake news” is a term we hear all the time – whether in mainstream media, social media or day-to-day conversations. But what is it really? How do we determine what is “fake news”? And what can we do about it? Ahmed Al-Rawi is a researcher who uncovers fake news in the media and studies its impact. He believes fake news is more pervasive and dangerous today, and that we all need to be more critically aware of it.

World Health Organization: How to report misinformation online

As the world responds to the COVID-19 pandemic, we face the challenge of an overabundance of information related to the virus. Some of this information may be false and potentially harmful. Inaccurate information spreads widely and at speed, making it more difficult for the public to identify verified facts and advice from trusted sources, such as their local health authority or WHO. However, everyone can help to stop the spread. If you see content online that you believe to be false or misleading, you can report it to the hosting social media platform. This guide provides information on how to report false information over a host of platforms including Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and many others.