Tips to Remember
Social media can be a wasteland of misinformation and deception. Always question and ask yourself, is it too good to be true?
- Look at where the information is coming from. You can hover over the account owner's name in order to see more information about them. Also look at whether there a link to a source that the post references. If so, what do you know and can you learn about that source's credibility?
- Try to find a second source from a reputable site that supports what appears in social media.
- Do a deep dive into the authors sharing the information. Check their credentials and expertise. Deception on the internet is as easy as typing out what one believes to be the truth. (On sites like Twitter, you can often learn more about an author by simply right-clicking on their username.)
Image credit: "Social Media Icons on Chalk Sticks" by makeawebsitehub is licensed under CC BY 2.0
Further Reading
- COVID-19 Crisis: Social Media vs. Scientific ResearchStudents 4 Best Evidence (S4BE) is a growing network of students from around the world, from school age to university, who are interested in learning more about evidence-based health care (EBH).
- How to Do a Reverse Image Search (Semrush Blog)Performing a reverse image search allows you to take an image and find where it was originally published, other pages that have published the same image, different sizes of the same image used, and similar images. Using this tool you can help debunk the origin images that are sometimes used in false viral news or social media postings.
- How to Report Covid-19 Misinformation Online from the WHOHelp stop the spread of misinformation online using these reporting tools. If you see content online that you believe to be false or misleading, you can report it to the hosting social media platform featured on this page.
- Let's Hover (Mike Caulfield, Sifting Through the Pandemic)Demonstrates how to hover over a user profile name in order to find out more about the source
- The Disinformation Dozen: Why Platforms Must Act on Twelve Leading Online Anti-VaxxersThis article discusses how "[t]welve anti-vaxxers are responsible for almost two-thirds of anti-vaccine content circulating on social media platforms aka as the disinformation dozen."