Truth assurance: Tools and websites for checking facts online
The Smear: How Shady Political Operatives and Fake News Control What You See, What You Think, and How You Vote by Sharyl Attkisson

Truth assurance: Tools and websites for checking facts online

Read Sharyl Attkisson's fascinating & eye-opening book about the US political smear machine, titled The Smear, and I guarantee it will influence your view of politics and the media.

All is not what it seems in the news and I’m often cautious when I read most media articles (even from trusted sources). However, it's amazing the extent to which smear artists and fake news merchants can exploit different communication channels, including mainstream media and social media.

In The Smear, Attkisson presents a balanced, comprehensive and non-partisan view of the fake news landscape, with great insight into the sinister and powerful tactics used by smear artists to manipulate the public. You’ll learn about:

  • opposition research – performing an investigation into the dealings of political opponents, typically to discredit them publicly
  • shadow banning – fully or partially blocking a user or their content from an online platform in a way that is not apparent to them
  • swiftboating – performing an unfair or untrue attack against a political opponent
  • astroturfing – deceptively coordinating a marketing or public relations campaign to appear as if being driven by the public
  • audience stacking – manipulating audience behaviour to make it appear positive or negative to mislead and influence public perception (e.g. by placing actors in the audience who jeer and boo, or cheer and shout support)
  • transactional journalism – mutually beneficial relationships between reporters and those on whom they report (often involving business deals or favours to report on people in a biased manner).

After reading the book (which I thoroughly recommend), I did some brief research into fake news. It’s an important topic, which is receiving greater coverage in the media, is mentioned increasingly by politicians and potentially affects many aspects of our lives.

The main objective of fake news writers is to elicit a response in the reader and influence public discourse. Various fact-checking organisations (including those in media, journalism, research and academia) are observing dishonest activity by individuals and groups who attempt to manipulate information that is provided through mainstream media and social media.

As a result, it is essential to determine if content, whether a claim, news article, photographic image or video is correct or real. During the research, I came across a range of fact-checking tools and websites that you can use to help check the authenticity of news articles, social media posts, account profiles, images and videos. The tools are very useful and, when used together, can help reduce the level of uncertainty and confusion regarding information presented online and in publications.

The first place I came across is the organisation Poynter, which is probably a good start for anyone pursuing the facts. Poynter is a fact-checking heavyweight and a major player in the battle against fake news. Many of the resources in this article were discovered through them.

Poynter hosts an informative one-hour fact-checking webinar titled Fact-Check It: Digital Tools to Verify Everything Online. During this free webinar, fact-checking specialists Ren LaForme and Daniel Funke highlight tools, tips and methods for verifying information online. It is worth signing up to watch the video and follow up on many of the websites recommended by LaForme and Funke.

Searching for the facts

Beyond 'gut feel' one of the first steps you should take is to perform an internet search on a topic in question. There are, obviously, several web search engines to choose from. The Google Advanced Search is a very powerful search tool that allows you to tailor your searches with specific requirements. In addition to the Boolean capabilities, I frequently focus searches on specific domains, target file types and make significant use of dates ranges.

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Fact-checking organisations and websites

The Duke Reporters' Lab focuses on fact-checking and keeps track of active and inactive fact-checking projects using an interactive map. As of June 2019, there are approximately 188 known independent fact-checking websites online.

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There are many fact-checking organisations and websites available with a great deal of them listed at Poynter's International Fact-Checking Network (IFCN) Signatories. Organisations that become an IFCN signatory need to demonstrate compliance with a Code of Principles.

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International Fact-Checking Day (IFCD) promotes more facts in politics, journalism, and everyday life. It provides tip sheets, a reading list and other materials for media consumers, students and anyone interested in obtaining the facts.

Fact checking teams in mainstream media

Many news providers and similar organisations have dedicated fact checking teams or departments, like:

These and similar groups check claims made and report inaccuracies. For example, the project FactCheck.org monitors the factual accuracy of what is said by major US political players in TV advertisements, debates, speeches, interviews and news releases.

Analyse of the extent to which topics and stories are covered online can be analysed using BuzzSumo, which highlights the most shared content and key influencers.

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Full Fact is the UK’s independent fact-checking charity.

PolitiFact examines specific statements made by politicians and rates them for accuracy.

Checking the details about websites and online presence

Promoters of fake news create temporary domains to peddle their misinformation and often shut them down quickly, to avoid scrutiny. Details relating to dates, ownership and other information about websites, internet domains and IP addresses can be checked using DNS tools like those provided at Who.is, Whois.net and ViewDNS.info. Of course, individuals and organisations can pay a fee to conceal their identity and related information when registering an internet domain.

Moz Link Explorer is web link tool lets you check the backlink profile and domain authority of a website.

Obtaining access to obsolete or removed content

Content that has been deliberately removed from the internet (to avoid scrutiny) might be available in the Internet Archive. This website is a large non-profit library of content, including books, movies, software, music, websites and more.

As part of the library, the Internet Archive provides access to an ever-growing list (billions) of web pages saved over time called the Wayback Machine/Wayback Machine.

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Google Chrome supports two Internet Archive-related browser extensions. These are:

  1. Wayback Machine, which will detect unavailable web pages (e.g. those that produce 404 error messages) and automatically checks for an archived copy in the Wayback Machine. You can obtain the extension from the Chrome Web Store here.
  2. Save To The Wayback Machine, which enables you to save a web page to the archive. You can obtain the extension from the Chrome Web Store here.

Verifying the origin and authenticity of images online

Reverse image searching is a method for helping to determine the origin and authenticity of an image. Google Image Search provides this capability.

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TinEye, which specialises in computer vision and pattern recognition, provides TinEye Reverse Image Search - an image search capability on their website.

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Google Chrome supports a configurable browser extension called RevEye Reverse Image Search, which enables you to perform an inverse image search by right-clicking an image displayed on a website. You can obtain the extension from the Chrome Web Store here.

When examining an image, the embedded metadata (i.e. details relating to the image like owner, location and date) can provide a great deal of information that helps to determine its authenticity.

Jeffrey Friedl provides a web-based photograph information tool called the Image Metadata Viewer, which reveals metadata associated with (contained within) a digital image.

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Verifying the origin and authenticity of videos online

The VideoLAN official VLC media player is a free and open source cross-platform multimedia player for multimedia files and streaming protocols.

The InVID Project is a video verification platform to help detect emerging stories and assess the reliability of newsworthy video files and content spread via social media.

Amnesty International provides the ability to examine the metadata, and check the authenticity, of You Tube videos with the You Tube Dataviewer.

A useful technique for checking videos is to take a screenshot during playback and use this for a reverse image search.

Checking social media content and identities

Social media platforms are a common and powerful way for fake news writers to reach and manipulate people. Search features, that are similar to those provided by Google, are available for searching Twitter using the Twitter Advanced Search.

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The website and tool Twitter Audit examines Twitter accounts to help determine the extent to which followers are real.

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Twitter accounts can also be analysed using Luca Hammers web-based account analysis tool.

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Google Chrome supports a browser extension called Treeverse, which enables you to navigate Twitter threads visualised as a tree can obtain the extension from the Chrome Web Store here.

StalkerScan is a tool that shows public information for a given Facebook profile (since June 2019 this tool has been restricted by Facebook).

Checking geographical location information

Fake news writers attempt to mislead through the misuse of images. Again, Google comes to the rescue as details about claimed locations can be checked using Google Earth. But there are other useful location tools like Wikimapia, which is an open-content collaborative mapping project.

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The MapChecking website helps to validate claims about a crowd size. Provide a location and web tool will estimate number of people that can fit in a defined space on the map.

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Further validation about the location and time suggested in an image or video can be obtained using the web tools SunCalc.net and SunCalc.org. These clever websites provide useful information about the sun, which can be used to help validate specific times and positions represented in photographic images and videos. SunCalc provides a wealth of information about the sun and its effects includes, position, elevation and movement (sunrise and sunset), sunlight phases, shadow length and solar eclipses.

I'm sure there are plenty more resources out there and keen to discover them. Thanks to Ren LaForme and Daniel Funke whose work influenced much of what’s in this article.

Know of, or use, any great fact checking resources? Share them here.

Jake Hoban

Your biggest problems don't live in silos... see and act systemically for greater impact

4y

Great article Mark, will bookmark for future reference. There is a massive asymmetry between attack and defence here given most people won't do this kind of checking. To use a security analogy, it's like not having basic things like antivirus. Maybe it's a matter of evolving maturity - these days most people know they need AV, maybe eventually it'll become the norm to use one of a few popular fact checking sites?

Nick van Benschoten

Economic Crime Prevention

4y

Public resources and practical techniques for fact checking and unwinding reputation laundering. An important antidote to the ‘counsel of despair’ about fake news (which is itself part of the propaganda).

Alan Jenkins

Trusted Advisor, Interim CISO, Principal Consultant, NED & #UnsungHero 2022 Security Leader & Mentor

4y

A great article, Mark 👍

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