If a story is real and really big, you will likely (though not always) see some version of it from multiple sources. Random use of ALL CAPS? Lots of exclamation points? Does it make sense when you read it out loud? Can you imagine a TV newscaster reading it out loud? Is there something just off about it? Does it sound very angry, inflammatory, emotional? None of these are good signs. Poke around a little if things look less-than-official, you’re probably on a spoof site. ) You can also check the website’s “about” page, its list of contacts, and other stories and photos on it. (She has since taken it down and published a more general guide. Such “spoofing” can be quite effective - but there are often telltale signs to indicate their true nature.įor example, you should be vary of articles on sites whose addresses, or URLs, that end in “com.co,” writes Melissa Zimdars, a communications professor at Merrimack College whose own list of “fake news” sites went viral. Some hoax sites, designed to draw you in for advertising revenue, feature designs that resemble legitimate, well-known websites. And if you want, you can report them to Facebook, which can flag stories for fact-checkers to evaluate. But there are basic things news readers can do themselves to spot fake news. This includes working with outside fact-checking organizations and drying up financial incentives to what it calls the “worst of the worst” spammers that traffic in made-up stories.
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