How to distinguish real information from fake? Evgeny Kudryats spoke with the founder of the project “Check” Ilya Ber.
- Ilya, you are a representative of a younger generation than me, therefore, apparently, you cannot remember that in Soviet times there were rumors and gossip, especially about celebrities, because their personal life was not covered in the media. In the modern world, we often live in captivity of fakes, and in connection with the epidemic of Coronavirus, this worsened even more. How can an ordinary ordinary user of the Internet by any specific signs to distinguish real information from “linden”?
- Unfortunately, there is no universal and simple answer to this question, because if it were, then the problem was not so acute. On the other hand, I believe that what is happening now is globally good precisely in terms of fakes and infustodemia, since the first step to solving the problem is its awareness. For an advanced part of the world community, this awareness came in 2016 in connection with the elections of Trump and Brexit, but now the problem of Fake News is already reaching and, as it is now fashionable to say, to the “deepest people”, and in various countries. The effect of this will not be visible immediately, but I really hope for it that people in the mass order will understand that there is a problem here, “tinting”, to false information.
I can still give some specific recommendations on how to recognize the fake:
- If you see an article that is emotionally “clinging” to you, and the information placed in it is important for you personally or changes your attitude to some phenomenon or to a famous person, then before putting like and sending this material on social networks or messengers, you must look at the source of the information, where did it come from, and also see who exactly sent it to you. If this is done by a person, but he does not refer to the source of information, 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 in no know where, then this information should be put under a serious doubt and in no case try not to send it to anyone and not published, even with a note: “I don’t know, maybe this is a fake, but look!”, Because, thus, we are in many information chaos and do not observe the information “hygiene”.
- It is worth trusting only that information that comes from a fairly authoritative source and precisely the primary source. If the article appeared in some authoritative and long-existing media, that is, he has some kind of reputation, this is already something. If you see it for the first time and hear it, then this is no different from any blog or oral message of any person, or from the inscription on the fence.
- And if, for example, you in WhatsApp comes some vocal message that all the stores are closing because of the coronavirus, do not go anywhere and sit at home. How to determine that there is some kind of catch here? Such a message looks very believable, it is made very professionally-with thoughtful directing and special presentation, so there is no doubt that this is some kind of “linden”, although it is just about “stuffing”?
“The difficulty is that in the very structure of the text it is far from always possible to distinguish fake information from the genuine, 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 building a folklore text ”, which, in fact, gives rise to a“ virus effect ”. In this way, you can transmit true messages and false ones, therefore, unfortunately, simple answers do not work here, and the first move is the search for the original source or at least some authoritative source that has published this and may have taken on part of the responsibility for the fact that this is true information. Yes, this is far from always possible, but if it turns out, it is fine! If you do not have such an opportunity, then you do not need to distribute this information and take it seriously. Did you find something sensational? “Go” yourself in the sources of information that you trust and look for something on this topic there. If there are silent about this, then, most likely, this information does not need to be seriously treated. In the case of coronavirus infection, look for information in any authoritative publication of any country, including Russia, because Russia in this matter is no exception. Information that you need to sit at home, and everything will be closed, you will find everywhere: on the First Channel, in Medusa, in RBC and on the website of the official headquarters to combat coronavirus - in any publication, regardless of its political "coloring". And if you see information that warm water or cold water saves from coronavirus, ginger in frantic quantities, lemons or baths with salt, and you, without checking this information, use such tips, then you risk finishing life as a few days old, dead from salt poisoning! These people became the victims of the information and fake, and not the coronavirus, as a result - the same sad result ...
- But there are special sites of the satirical plan (I do not want to call specific “addresses, turnouts and passwords” so as not to make advertising), 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 issue them for genuine messages. I don’t know if they do it consciously or not, but thus 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 fictional news, which, in general, have no questions, because they honestly warn and do not deceive anyone. Yes, really a bunch of people for this is “bought”, “a knife is not needed for a fool”, so their general integral effect can be for people and negative, but it seems to me that it is wrong to try to somehow disgrace or limit resources of this type, but it is necessary to increase the media graphicity of the population so that people understand that they are talking about humor, although they come across, come across and will come across!
“But there are such absurd headlines, for example, this:“ In Russia, a temporary moratorium will be introduced in Russia. ”
-There is another problem associated with the first of April on the day of April, which is associated with a large number of first-April and comic articles in serious publications, which then begin to “walk” on the network without any binding by April 1 without understanding a comic nature. This can also be considered a subsection of the problems you raised with satirical sites, and it exists. But what to do - to prohibit joke on the first of April? It seems to be impossible, this is a tradition.
-This year, because of the coronavirus, there were much fewer draws and jokes than usual: somehow now everyone has no laughing ...
-Yes, there was a certain decline, but, no, in Izvestia, an article on the coronavirus, written in a false-shaped form, was published in Izvestia, and real scientists even began to expose it, after which it turned out that the first time the publication appeared on March 31 at 23.00, and then the date of publication was postponed to the first of April and this indirectly showed that the article was a comic thing And consciously fake. But a bunch of people “bought” and completely seriously rushed to refute it. And they continue to “walk” around the world of the jokes of past years.
-In the “yellow press”, some “left” information appears very often, but there they are insured that they use the introductory words: “supposedly”, “possibly”, “it is possible”, etc. What do you think about it?
-It is far from always the “yellow press” acts like this, and I see much more often some nonsense or invention and so that we do without these words, because we do not have normal and wide judicial practice to punish the “yellow press” for such things, but if I see what you are talking about, then formally you can’t complain about them. The “yellow press” exists throughout the world: everywhere there are tabloids, just the task of working with information and in education - school and institute - tell people what is, but there is another, and if you read the “yellow press”, you should understand the level of verification of information and sensation, which should be there without fail there. But there is another problem that I am talking about so that people realize it. The era of social networks brought us the phenomenon of "heading knowledge"
- I was just about to ask you about it!
- This was a problem before, but now it has aggravated, because loud and bright headlines are written to attract readers and to attract search engines. At the same time, the catchy title always has more chances, but very often the heading does not correspond to the content of the article itself. If earlier a person read the title of the article, and then read the material itself, now a huge number of people in the world sees only the headline and, perhaps, the first paragraph or picture in his social networks, and out of a dozen such headers, at best, “click” on one, while distorted information from the headers we include in our picture of the world. This is a big problem, and it is not very clear what to do with it, because it is impossible to “click” for every news, there is not enough time for this, not to mention the fact that you can go crazy at all. I'm afraid that only some kind of consciousness and awareness or self-discipline will help here: to remember what and how do you know. If you know about some plot only from the line of the title, but did 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 is difficult and requires training!
- Thank you for the conversation. In conclusion, I will illustrate what you said by the following headline: "Maria Zakharov was lost due to deadly coronavirus." It turned out that the article is not talking about the official representative of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation, but about the missing daughter of the singer Masha Rasputina.
