We are living in a time of fifth-generation warfare where countries, political organizations, businesses, and even individuals are using information as a weapon to malign their competitors. They continuously create and disseminate fake news to win sympathy and defame others.
Although many claims about its existence, the reality is impartiality has vanished. Even many big news organizations share the real news the way they want. They hide some facts against their agendas and share the ones that are harmless to them. Moreover, some independent journalists and social media influencers are spreading fake news regularly to force people to believe in realities that don’t exist.
Individuals should not believe every piece of news they receive on the internet. They shouldn’t also spread them without authenticating them. Otherwise, they will also be used as propaganda tools.
But the question is, are there any ways to separate ourselves from fake news or check its authenticity? Yes, there are many. In this article, we will look at those ways.
Here are a few things you should do whenever you receive news to discover whether it is accurate or fake.
Locate the Real Source
Political parties, government officials, and businesses sometimes share some pieces of information that tell viewers that they are on the right path and that their competitors are the worst people around the world. Moreover, they accuse others of multiple crimes. The sole purpose of these kinds of statements is to hurt their competitors’ reputations and gain more popularity.
You must not believe the statements until the relevant authorities prove them. Furthermore, you should also check the real source of the news, whether it is a policy statement, research report, or just a statement worth nothing. It can help you know whether that statement is only to accuse others or has some relation with reality.
Furthermore, some news agencies and media houses are well-known for being the mouthpieces of some organizations and politicians. Therefore, you must not rely on them. However, if you get a piece of news from a well-reputed source like Reuters, AFP, AP, Bloomberg, or BBC News, you can rely on it. Otherwise, if the source of information or news is not credible, you should not share the news. There could be some elements of propaganda in them.
Don’t Believe the News Spread by Competitors
As mentioned above, organizations use the news as a propaganda tool. Some countries officially blamed other countries, spread fake news against them, gained sympathies, and ultimately attacked them. Moreover, many politicians have used media channels to disseminate their propaganda. You must not believe the news shared and spread by a person or organization’s competitors. They mostly exaggerate the realities.
However, if you get the news from various credible sources, then it would be accurate. You would have seen that most companies and politicians shared the reports published by unknown media outlets. Those outlets are usually biased and only share facts after molding them according to their agendas. So, you should not share their news without confirmation.
Use Technology to Check News’ Authenticity
What if we get news that is only published or reported by a few sources? In these cases, technology comes in handy. The best technology or method you can use is a reverse image search. The image search method is quite good when finding out the sources of information, especially some pictures.
When it comes to knowing who else has reported the same news, you should upload the attached photos on a reliable photo search platform. Within a few seconds, it will help you know where else the same images have been published. Then, by reading the story on those web pages, you can easily find out whether the piece of information you have received is correct or not.
Although various image search engines are available over the internet, not everyone is reliable for every kind of picture. However, DupliChecker reverse image search engine can help you in the process as it combines the results of multiple big reverse search engines in one place. So, you can quickly get the desired information without uploading the pictures on numerous platforms.
Learn to Differentiate Between Opinion and Information
Here comes the most important thing. It can help if you always differentiate between news articles and opinions. Sometimes people consider op-eds as news articles, but they aren’t. In opinion editorials, news agencies and some journalists share their opinion and don’t claim their opinion as news. So, as a news consumer, you should also not consider them as news articles.
In many cases, we have seen that journalists have apologized for their stories. But these apologies are sometimes useless once the damage is done. Therefore, you should always be cautious before sharing an opinion-based article as a news story. Otherwise, you will also be unintentionally involved in spreading a fake and unauthentic story.
