More people search for health online The challenge remains to close the gap between people with Internet health access and those without, but improvements are also needed in helping people find relevant information once they are online.
How Fake Health News Can Lead You to Make Dangerous Decisions The spread of false medical information and news can create barriers between people and better healthcare.
Fake or misleading news has become more prevalent on our devices and screens. This page helps readers think critically about news resources they find, and offers tips on how to evaluate news sources for accuracy and bias.
The term "Filter Bubble" was created by internet activist Eli Pariser around 2010. Filter bubble refers to search engine algorithms which selectively guess what information you would like to see based on your previous click-behavior, location, and your search history. Filter bubbles create a sense of isolation when users only see search results that confirm their own beliefs. Learn more with Eli Pariser's Ted Talk.
False News has been around for centuries. Here are recommended bias-checking resources.
AllSides
AllSides "strengthens our democracy with balanced news, diverse perspectives, and real conversation". Use this to see news coverage from the left, right, and center. Uses an algorithm to assign bias ratings to news and other issues.
Media Bias/Fact Check
Media Bias/Fact Check has over 2800 sources listed in their database. We recommend using their search feature to check the bias of any name or URL source.
Interactive Media Bias Chart, by Ad Fontes Media
Search for popular and obscure news platforms. See where those platforms sit on a spectrum of liberal to conservative, reliable to unreliable, and fact reporting to analysis to propaganda. Detailed information on their rating system and methodology on their website.
NewsGuard uses journalism to fight false news, misinformation, and disinformation. Trained analysts, who are also experienced journalists, research online news brands to help readers and viewers know which ones are trying to do legitimate journalism and which are not.
Download the NewsGuard browser badge. Badges appear next to links in search results and social media feeds. Hovering over each badge reveals how the site fared against NewsGuard's standards and enables users to click to read the full "Nutrition Label" review.
Quickly decipher if:
A website is generally adhering to basic standards of credibility and transparency.
A website is generally failing to meet basic standards of credibility and transparency.
A humor or satire site receives a satire rating, indicating that it is not a real news website.
A site receives a platform rating if it primarily hosts user-generated content that it does not evaluate.
The free NewsGuard browser extension is available for Chrome, Edge, Safari, and Firefox. They do not collect any personal data of any kind from those using the extension.
Snopes
Search thousands of fact checks and investigations in their database to discover what is true and what is total nonsense. You can also send them a story or a tip if you can't find what you're looking for.
Politifact
Focuses on looking at specific statements made by Politicians and rating them for accuracy. Politifact is a nonprofit run by the editors and journalists who make up the PolitiFact team.
Who Is
Search the whois database to look up domain and IP owner information and more. Get all the data you need about a domain and everything associated with that domain. Use it find who owns a website when you can't quite figure it out.
Google Reverse Image Search
A content-based image retrieval technique that can help you find more information about the images you see in search results or on webpages. For example, you can tell what site the image came from and its dimensions.
Web Literacy for Student Fact-Checkers [open access ebook]
"This guide will show you how to use date filters to find the source of viral content, how to assess the reputation of a scientific journal in less than five seconds, and how to see if a tweet is really from the famous person you think it is or from an impostor. It’ll show you how to find pages that have been deleted, figure out who paid for the website you’re looking at, and whether the weather portrayed in that viral video actual matches the weather in that location on that day. It’ll show you how to check a Wikipedia page for recent vandalism and how to search the text of almost any printed book to verify a quote. It’ll teach you to parse URLs and scan search result blurbs so that you are more likely to get to the right result on the first click. And it’ll show you how to avoid baking confirmation bias into your search terms." - from Chapter 1, Why This Book? Also see chapter IV, Lateral Search!
