How to distinguish real information from fake? Evgeniy Kudryats spoke with the founder of the “Verified” project, Ilya Ber.
— Ilya, you are a representative of a younger generation than me, therefore, apparently, you cannot remember that even in Soviet times there were rumors and gossip, especially about celebrities, because their personal lives were not covered in any way in the media. In the modern world, we often live in captivity of fakes, and due to the coronavirus epidemic, this has become even more acute. How can an ordinary ordinary Internet user, based on certain characteristics, distinguish real information from “fake” information?
“Unfortunately, there is no universal and simple answer to this question, because if there was one, then the problem would not be so acute. On the other hand, I believe that what is happening now is globally good in terms of fakes and the infodemic, since the first step to solving the problem is its awareness. For the advanced part of the world community, this realization came in 2016 in connection with the Trump election and Brexit, but now the problem of Fake News is already reaching, as it is now fashionable to say, the “deep people”, and in a variety of countries. The effect of this will not be visible immediately, but I really hope for it, that people en masse will understand that there is a problem here, having been “stuck” by false information.
I can still give some specific recommendations on how to recognize a fake:
- If you see an article that emotionally touches you, and the information posted in it is personally important to you or changes your attitude towards some phenomenon or a famous person, then before you like it and send this material to someone on social networks or instant messengers, you need to look at the source of the information - where it came from, and also see who exactly sent it to you. If a person you respect did this, but he does not link to the original source of information, then this means that you still do not know anything about this source, so you need to find out where this information was published. If it was published somewhere unknown, then this information, at a minimum, should be seriously questioned and under no circumstances try not to forward it to anyone or publish it, even with the note: “I don’t know, maybe it’s a fake, but look!”, because in this way we multiply information chaos and do not maintain information “hygiene.”
- You should only trust information that comes from a sufficiently authoritative source and precisely the original source. If an article appeared in some authoritative and long-established media outlet, that is, it has some kind of reputation, that’s already something. If this is the first time you see and hear it, then it is no different from any blog or oral message from any person, or from an inscription on a fence.
- And if, for example, you Whatsapp I receive a voice message saying that because of the coronavirus, all stores are closing, don’t go anywhere and stay at home. How to determine that there is some kind of catch here? This message looks very plausible, it is made very professionally - with thoughtful direction and a special presentation, so there is no doubt that this is some kind of “fake”, although we are talking about a “stuffing”?
— The difficulty is that by the very structure of the text it is not always possible to distinguish fake information from genuine information, because in both cases the same words are used in compliance with the same, as you say, “laws of dramaturgy” or, as scientists say, “laws of constructing a folklore text,” which, in fact, gives rise to a “viral effect.” In this way, you can convey true and false messages, so, unfortunately, simple answers do not work here, and the first move is to search for the original source or at least some authoritative source who published this and perhaps took part of the responsibility for the fact that this is true information. Yes, this is not always possible, but if it works, that’s great! If you do not have such an opportunity, then you do not need to disseminate this information in any way and take it seriously. Have you found something sensational? “Go” yourself to those sources of information that you trust and look for something on this topic there. If they are silent about it, then, most likely, this information should not be taken seriously. In the case of coronavirus infection, look for information in any authoritative publication of any country, including Russia, because Russia is no exception in this matter. You will find information that you need to stay at home and everything will be closed everywhere: on Channel One, in Meduza, in RBC and on the website of the official headquarters for the fight against coronavirus - in any publication, regardless of its political “coloring”. And if you see information that warm or cold water, ginger in crazy quantities, lemons or salt baths can save you from coronavirus, and you use such advice without checking this information, you risk ending your life the same way as several people did the other day, died from salt poisoning! These people became victims of an infodemic and a fake, not a coronavirus, and in the end - the same sad result...
— But there are special satirical sites (I don’t want to name specific “addresses, appearances and passwords” so as not to advertise for them), which have very specific humor, sometimes “black” or abstract, but they warn that this is a humorous site, but many users of the same Facebook reprint information from these sites and pass them off as genuine messages. I don't know whether they do it consciously or not, but in this way this "story" multiplies and many people get into trouble. What do you think about this?
— I believe that these sites can be called: Panorama Pub and Intersucks, these are the largest portals of fictitious news, to which I, in general, have no questions, because they honestly warn about it and do not deceive anyone. Yes, indeed, a lot of people “buy into this”, “you don’t need a knife to kill a fool,” so their overall integral effect may be negative for people, but it seems to me that it is wrong to try to somehow disgrace or limit resources of this type, and we need to increase the media literacy of the population so that people understand that we are talking about humor, although they have fallen for it, are falling for it and will continue to fall for it!
“But there are such absurd headlines, for example, this one: “A temporary moratorium on wearing beards and mustaches will be introduced in Russia.”
—There is another problem associated with April Fools' Day, which is associated with a large number of April Fools' pranks and humorous articles in serious publications, which then begin to "walk" on the Internet without any connection to April 1st without understanding the humorous nature. This can also be considered a subsection of the problem you raised with satirical sites, and it exists. But what should we do – ban jokes on the first of April? It seems impossible, this is a tradition.
— This year, due to the coronavirus, there were much fewer pranks and jokes than usual: Somehow, now everyone is clearly not laughing...
— Yes, there was a certain decline, but, nevertheless, Izvestia published an article about the coronavirus, written in a pseudoscientific form, and real scientists even began to expose it, after which it turned out that the publication first appeared on March 31 at 23.00, and then the publication date was postponed to April 1, and this indirectly showed that the article was a joke and deliberately fake. But a bunch of people “bought it” and quite seriously rushed to refute it. And the jokes of past years continue to “walk” around the world.
— Some kind of “leftist” information very often appears in the “yellow press,” but they insure themselves by using introductory words: “allegedly,” “possibly,” “not excluded,” etc. What do you think about this?
- The “yellow press” does not always act this way, and much more often I just see some kind of nonsense or blatant lies and inventions that do without these words, because we do not have normal and widespread judicial practice to punish the “yellow press” for such things, but if I see what you are talking about, then formally one cannot find fault with them. The “yellow press” exists all over the world: there are tabloids everywhere, it’s just the task of those working with information and in education – school and college – to tell people what is this and what is different, and if you read the “yellow press”, you must understand the level of verification of information and sensationalism that must necessarily be there. But there is another problem that I am talking about so that people realize it. The era of social networks has brought us the phenomenon of “headline knowledge”
“I was just about to ask you about this!”
— This was a problem before, but now it has worsened, because loud and bright headlines are written to attract readers and to attract search engines. At the same time, a catchy headline always has a better chance, but very often the headline does not correspond to the content of the article itself. If previously a person read the title of an article and then read the material itself, now a huge number of people in the world see only the title and, perhaps, the first paragraph or picture on their social networks, and out of a dozen such headlines, at best they “click” on one, while we include distorted information from the headlines in our picture of the world. This is a big problem, and it’s not very clear what to do with it, because it’s impossible to “click” on every news, there’s not enough time for that, not to mention the fact that you can go crazy. I’m afraid that only some kind of consciousness and awareness or self-discipline will help here: remember what and where you know from. If you know about a certain plot only from the title line, and have not read anything else, then it is better not to have an opinion about this plot and not to draw any conclusions based on such information. It's difficult and requires practice!
- Thank you for the conversation. In conclusion, I will illustrate what you said with the following headline: “Maria Zakharova was lost due to the deadly coronavirus.” It turned out that the article was not talking about the official representative of the Russian Foreign Ministry, but about the missing daughter of singer Masha Rasputina.
