Facts and Fiction

Any idiot can create a website or post information online. In fact, many of them do. How do you distinguish between the facts and the fiction?

There was a time when you could trust published information to be accurate and reliable, as there were stringent processes in place to ensure that fact checking was done, published work was edited, and libel was always a potential threat. The advent of the internet, and the ease with which all of us can say what we think and feel, means this is no longer the case.

The implication of this is that we need to be careful about believing everything we see and hear online. Today's blog looks at ways you can check your information, and ensure you are not being misled.

Ask Google

Inevitably most of us turn to Google, and it works well to find information. However, it is essential to understand some of how it works. Firstly, the code (algorithm) that Google uses to search considers your interests and tries to find similar items. It's a bit like Netflix saying 'you might like this'. It's a great feature in many respects – if you are a cricket enthusiast and type in 'bats' you're more likely to see cricket bats than the animal. If you want to check this, ask everyone in the room with you to type in the same search words and see how the results vary.

The issue with this is of course that it also skews your results towards what you're already thinking. This means if you look at conspiracy sites, when you search again, you are more likely to be directed to these, and so your views and any biases are continually reinforced.

You can avoid this by using Incognito Browsing in Chrome (use Press Ctrl + Shift + n) or simply Google it.

Or you can use a different search engine, like duckduckgo which does not track your activity online.

Advertising and search engine optimisation

The internet and most 'free' online services run on advertising revenue. The more traffic (ie visitors) to a website, the more advertising money it can make (Advertisers pay based on how many people visit a site and how many click on adverts on the site) This is why we get clickbait, and stories that run over multiple pages.

A whole science has grown around Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) which is how Google and other search engines find websites. Basically, it works by adding keywords and terms to the 'back-end' of a website. The point of this is to attract people to the website. Some sites use words that have absolutely nothing to do with the content of the website.

It also means that when you read articles, particularly the 'shock-value' ones you should be very aware that many of them are simply to get you clicking on the site. I recently read one that seemed fascinating, and at the end of the 'article' it admitted the whole story was made up.

Facebook is one of the worst sites for sharing these types of links and articles, which lead you down virtual rabbit holes. They can also attract viruses. The people who are most often hacked are those who share without checking.

Research

Research is defined as 'the systematic investigation into and study of materials and sources in order to establish facts and reach new conclusions.' (Oxford Languages) It is about looking at all of the available facts and making decisions and reaching conclusions based on the facts.

What tends to happen with online searching is that people start with a conclusion and look for 'facts' that support that conclusion. This inevitably leads to inaccurate results. 

Scientists and researchers when conducting research start with a premise, then explore all the data they can find to confirm whether or not it is accurate. They search existing information, and then create studies, surveys and experiments to add to that data. Only then do they reach conclusions. Then those conclusions are criticised by their peers in a process called 'peer-review'. It is only then that the studies are published. The process is robust.

It's also important when saying research has been debunked to look at the reasons – if the initial survey was too small to draw conclusions, the conclusions may still be correct, but you'd have to repeat the research with a much larger survey to confirm this.

Researchers are continually looking at new data, and revising their findings in light of what is known and discovered.

We may think that Google can diagnose us better than a doctor (and I know doctors who roll their eyes at the words – I looked it up on Google) Google does have more information at its disposal, but a doctor has been trained in knowing which information is more important and is less likely to ignore something that does not fit into the diagnosis. 

In an information age, understanding how to evaluate information is a critical skill. In some cases, it can mean life and death. Persisting in believing something even though the evidence suggests otherwise, means it is not evidence you believe in. Saying something is false or that it did or didn't happen is not enough – ask yourself 'where / what is the proof of this?

To evaluate information, ask yourself:

• Who wrote it? – are they an expert or authority in their field? Do they have an agenda, such as earning money from advertising, or promoting a viewpoint. (For the record, I have a Masters in Information Science, spent 20 years managing libraries and teaching information skills, and now work on University Research Projects)
• Who published it? Is the publisher one that has an agenda or specific view to put forward.
• When was it published? – how up to date is the information. The internet has been around for nearly 50 years. There is a lot of old information out there!
• Is there a list of sources? (bibliography) that show the author has done their research. It also pays to check those links too. (I tend to include mine as links to the information sources rather than as a list)
• Is the language quality good? – ie not riddled with spelling and grammatical errors. Does it use strong, emotional language or is it fair and unbiased. For example – I love cats, so may refer to them as 'adorable little furballs'. Someone who does not like them may refer to them as 'vicious murdering felines.'
• Are there other sites that say the same thing, or do they say something completely different? Don't be afraid to read something contrary to what you think – it is a healthy way of examining what you think.

Of course, you can also fact check using Snopes, a site that exists to fact check, and they investigate claims, conspiracies and stories that appear online. They will often identify the tiny germ of truth at the centre of a lot of lies.

The information 'wild wild web' is starting to be curbed. We've seen high profile cases like the Fox News and Dominion lawsuit over the way Fox News reported allegations of election fraud. That mistake cost Fox $787.5million, and news agencies are now a little more cautions. (If anyone still thinks that the election Trump lost was rigged, you should really read this fact checking report) 

The BBC now presents a show called 'Verified live' which looks at claims that have been made, and then looks at the evidence supporting or contradicting them to reach a conclusion.

Facts and information matter, because we use them to make critical decisions. In some cases, it can mean life and death. In this information age, understanding how to evaluate information is a critical skill.