The reason why most people today are panicking is that a lot of news articles and posts today are giving off false information, especially about the recent Coronavirus outbreak or the COVID-19 pandemic.
You’ll find many of these cooked-up articles on Facebook, Twitter, and other famous social media sites. Moreover, these fake news-articles and posts are either created by trolls or opportunists.
What most people don’t know is that they’re earning money for their pesky work, due to the traffic that they get whenever they post something catchy and something believable, which is also the reason why they took the current crisis as an opportunity to gain an audience.
The more we bite-in to fake information, the more we allow these trolls to gain money for every click that we make on their fake-news traps.
So, how do we actually spot fake COVID-19 news online?
Well, here are 3 ways to do so!
Find the Source of the Article or Post
The source of the article or post will immediately tell whether the post is fake or not. How? Simple, it’s because there are only limited sources online that create factual news.
The best source that you should be looking for if you need to hear the real news about the recent pandemic is WHO.int or the (World Health Organization).
It’s still okay if you’re used to reading validated information from other legitimized medical blog sites or news programs, as long as you’ll see to it that they’re speaking the truth.
Learn to Compare News Sources and Content
Now that you know that there are sources that you need to trust online, the next thing that you should do is learning how to compare, both source and content.
Whenever you see an article or post that has a suspicious title or headline to check the source and compare its entire content to a legit source online such as the WHO.
In this way, you’ll be able to know if the suspicious posts that you were reading are actually factual or real. It’s not only an effective process of finding validated news, but it’s also a good practice of dividing which news sources are fake and which are not.
Check the Date of the Article or Post
If you haven’t noticed, most deemed fake news and posts that you see online aren’t actually fake; instead, they’re articles from the past, which means that they’re factual but outdated.
If it’s an outdated post, it means that the content is still legitimately made by valid sources, but the content itself isn’t reliable anymore because of time and changes that go with it.
Most people often overlook this type of small detail which is why the online community is struggling to find a better news source online.
You must see these types of posts yourself, so you can carefully identify if the content is actually factual and related to the current crisis that we have today.
Bottom Line
Only use legitimate sources as your lead in sharing factual news. Learn to be vigilant amidst the crisis today, by making sure that you’re socially responsible for what you share and post online.
Not everyone is aware of the existence of fake news, especially about the current COVID-19 pandemic. That’s why you also have to make sure that you’re doing your part by posting responsibly online and by making sure to fend-off fake news as much as possible.
