Real Vs. Fake

Something Real

Smithsonian magazine claims that Climate Activists Throw Soup on Vincent van Gogh’s ‘Sunflowers’ to Protest Fossil Fuels

Investigate the Source

According to the Wikipedia page for Smithsonian, the magazine is the Smithsonian Institute’s official journal publication. The Smithsonian institute is a reputable collection of museums and research centers.

Find Trusted Coverage

This story has been covered by several news outlets including very well-known news sites like CNN and The Washington Post.

Trace Claims

Smithsonian cites reputable sources throughout the article for their claims, such as The Guardian, the New York Times, and even the National Gallery, where the event took place. They even include a video of the protest as it happened.

Something Fake

Natural News claims that West Coast orcas are experiencing 100% infant mortality rate as radiation from Fukushima drifts across ocean.

Investigate the Source

The Wikipedia page for Natural News says that the news source is a fake news site promoting primarily far-right extremist conspiracy theories.

Find Trusted Coverage

There are few articles about this claim, and the ones that do exist cite Natural News as the source. According to Snopes’ article on it, the claims are false and arose from fear-mongering subsequent to the Fukushima disaster.

Trace Claims

Natural News includes links to a few claims within their article, but they both just lead to the Natural News homepage. They list several sources at the end of their article from reputable news sources detailing the deaths of orcas, but none of them mention radiation as the cause of death.

The Disinformation and What’s Surprisingly Not

The Infinite Wisdom of Infowars

In a recent Infowars article, Paul Joseph Watson purposefully misinterpreted what a Swedish Psychological Defense Agent said, focusing on one particular quote of a longer interview. attaching a quote from George Orwell to project the author’s inability to understand the nuances of misinformation, then claiming that tides of immigrants are coming to Sweden.

The interview in question was regarding Sweden’s attempts to counteract Russian disinformation campaigns, some of which revolve around Swedish migration and crime rates. The London Times interview and seems like a fairly standard article, and ironically the Infowars article is engaging in disinformation by framing it simplistically. The quote in question describes disinformation as “basically true and only somewhat tweaked.” The Times article is behind a paywall so I couldn’t check the context of the quote, and the Infowars article doesn’t give much either, it just provides the quote with minimal background, then spews opinions. Infowars does take the time to suggest that people shouldn’t be demonized for sharing disinformation if it’s “basically true,” clearly with no bias involved.

How to Tell on Them – SIFT

The claim relied on distorting the validity of a statement that is something of a well-known fact within intelligence and fact-checking communities. The source of the claim, Infowars, is already a disreputable site, per Media Matters for America.

I investigated the claim, and the quote is real, and from a mostly benign interview about what is effectively standard practice. The quote comes from a reliable outlet, London Times, and is other information is corroborated by quick google searches regarding the interview and the name of the ministry of which the interviewee was part of. The claim or conclusion itself, however, is wonky at best.

While I tried to find better coverage, most of the articles talked about the formation of the Psychological Defense Agency, meaning that the only source for the claim regarding the quote is the original London Times Article.

There were claims that were not sourced but are discussed by Sweden’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, in which they either refute or decontextualize the arguments in the Infowars article.

Electric Vehicles Power Vasectomies

Well One, Anyways

A New York Post article reported that Dr. Chris Yang, MD performed a vasectomy with his tools being powered by an electric vehicle. It’s a real event that occurred in Austin, TX on Aug. 25 after a power outage. Most surgeries were rescheduled until someone mentioned using the electrical vehicle as a power source and the patient preferred not to reschedule if possible. Luckily vasectomies don’t require much power. Battery tools were available but not as accurate or controlled, so the vehicle powering the standard tools made the procedure significantly safer.

Cutting Into the Sourcing

I know New York Post isn’t as reputable as New York Times, so I instantly ran to see if the doctor they mentioned was real. They had his name and some social media links, as well as critical information to enhance the validity of the article. He has a twitter, a LinkedIn, and appears on several doctor review sites.

The original source is from a tweet the Dr. Yang made, in which he shows the truck being parked and the power cord leading into the operating room. In the search for other sources I found that the story was covered by Forbes and some medical journalism. The NYP article also embeds the direct sourcing into the article, making it very easy to find.

Which is True and which is False? The SIFT Method

True 

Paul hornor wekiperdia

Investigating:

there are many errors in wekepedia as professional sources. as I investigate it shows that wekipeedia is a s reliable as professional sources.

article about wekipedia

Claims and Coverage:

looking at other article they are sharing the similar information about Paul Horner wekipedia and professional sources they are sharing the same information about Paul hornor.

False 

fake news about Pfizer

Investigating:

this article did not had the same information as the real scholarly articles about Pfizer so I searched up but there was no article existed there that says the same thing as this article . if you search up this this site you can’t find it in Wikipedia which is a sign that indicates this might be wrong or fake.all of the Information about Pfizer vaccine is wrong. If you search up this article it is all fake news most of the information does not match the information in the scholarly articles or news about Pfizer so they have a little different dates and informations and it does not have an author and date or any other information that indicates that this article might be real. as we all know after the pandemic everyone was trying to do research to find a vaccine and a cure for covid 19 so after two years they finally find our Pfizer vaccine which was really good and almost everyone got it in U.S even my family and the affect was really good and all news were saying good thing about it so that is a prove that this site is fake and this site is stating wrong info about Pfizer and saying that this vaccine was a big failure. and if we search up this website and if you search it up in Wikipedia you can not find that site there because it is a fake website.

Claims and Coverage:

This article did not had the same information as profession article so this article might be not be real because the articles is sharing different information about Pfizer vaccine and how it has affected people .and this article. has different false information than other articles. the real affection of Pfizer was really good and if you search about it almost all info says that this vaccine was really good and helpful but this fake article sates that Pfizer was not a good cure or vaccine for covid at all and has a very bad affection on people and if you search up this article you will see that almost all the dates are wrong in this site.

Which is True and which is False? The SIFT Method

What is the SIFT method?

The SIFT method is a way of determining whether or not a source is reliable and trustworthy. The method consists of four steps to analyze a source’s integrity:

  • Stop: Stop to think about what you’re looking at and don’t share it around if you aren’t sure about it
  • Investigate the Source: Check to see what other websites say about the site you’re looking at
  • Find Better Coverage: Are other sites making the same claim?
  • Trace Claims, Quotes, and Media: Where is this article getting its information from? Is the origin of the information trustworthy?

Article 1: FALSE

The article entitled “DeSantis: Medical Elites ‘Were Wrong About Efficacy of mRNA Vaccines’” is false. Let’s break it down:

Stop:

Pausing to review the article at first glance shows the foundation for the article is based on what a politician says about vaccines, not a medical professional. Therefore, the reliability of the article should be questioned for further investigation.

Investigate the Source:

When looking up the article’s platform “InfoWars” it instantly results in other news outlets and fact-checking websites, such as PolitiFact, commenting on how it is a far-right conspiracy-oriented platform run by Alex Jones.

Finding Better Coverage:

When looking up if the medical field is in fact incorrect about the COVID-19 vaccine, I got a bunch of articles about how doctors and politicians have been making false claims and spreading misinformation about the vaccine.

Trace Claims:

If we trace the sources in the article back, they are other right-leaning sources such as stating that COVID boosters cause complications but the credit to this claim leads to the Epoch Times. Or sourcing things to another InfoWars article.

Article 2: TRUE

The article entitled “The new COVID booster could be the last you’ll need for a year, federal officials say” is true. Let’s break it down:

Stop:

When first viewing this article, the title does not conclusively state anything as factual, using words such as “could” instead of “will.” They also mention that federal officials are stating this. While the article still should be investigated, it is already looking as though it may be reliable.

Investigate the Source:

When looking up NPR, the source of the article, what mainly comes up are other websites claiming how NPR is one of the most trusted news sources in the U.S. and it is mentioned how the site is legitimate, neutral, and truthful.

Finding Better Coverage:

There are other news outlets mentioning that there might only be a need for COVID vaccines once a year from reputable sites such as CNN and the U.S. Global Leadership Coalition. However, there isn’t too much coverage since these articles were published 6 days ago.

Trace Claims:

If we trace the source of this article back, it leads to the U.S. Global Leadership Coalition page with Ashish Jha, the White House COVID-19 response coordinator, and how he has discussed the potential for there to only be an annual COVID vaccine in the following years.

Fake versus real Formula 1 news

True

Article: Daniel Ricciardo cut loose by McLaren in cold move.

Investigating:

News.com/au is not a very famous news source however their reporting is accurate. This story has been reported on by multiple sources and is able to be verified multiple times over.

Claims and Coverage:

The core of this story is correct because Riccardo has in fact decided not to renew his contract with McLaren. Inside this article there are also tons of quotes from Ricciardo talking about the end of his contract. It also has points that make a lot of sense such as McLaren denying Riccardo access to its 2023 plans for their car since he will be leaving the team.

This story is also being covered by ESPN who gives us the same story about Riccardo leaving McLaren because they surprised him by announcing they would drop him at the end of the year.

News.com/AU is an Australian news source according to wikipedia the news source has been awarded 3 women in news awards, 2 publishing awards, 1 watch award, and 1 women leadership awards. This website is also frequently voted the number 1 news source in Australia and attracts over 18 million visitors per month.

False

Article: Verstappen “Should Have A Race Off”

Investigating:

Beginning with the website URL being “Fake F1 news” this website is also made by a random person who may not have any type of formula 1 knowledge. This website also has no citations from where this information came from or quotes from anyone involved. This article also has nonsense in it about Harry Potter which has noting to do with formula 1.

There are no other news sources outside of this one that tell this same story suggesting that verstappen will take a sabbatical voluntarily.Another reason that this seems strange and untrue is because Verstappen is current ranked number 1 in Formula 1 and has been for a few consecutive years now.

This article about Red Bull coming out with new Verstappen apparel for fans invalidates the claims that he will be going on a sabbatical from the team. It would not make sense to make merchandise for a driver leaving the team.

This false website has no other sources talking about how reputable it is and is a Tumblr blog written by an unknown person.

Claims and Coverage:

There is no citations or credible sources linked to this website.

Something True, Something False

TRUE

I picked an article that is based upon song lyrics. People speculating who is ‘Becky’ Beyoncé refers to in her song ‘Sorry’.

INVESTIGATE

Although filled with a bit of controversy – Elite Daily is a hot topics and pop culture site that is geared to millennials. It is also nice that they include links to their claims.

FIND TRUSTED COVERAGE

When searching who wrote the song – it is cited that Beyoncé had two co-writers. I believe this brings credibility to this Elite Daily fact checking ‘Who is Becky?’ where it states that co-writer Diana Gorden knows no knowledge of who any Beck is other than it is a metaphor.

TRACE CLAIMS

My trace claim began with the album itself because I own it. In the book sleeve – in fact the co-writers are credited with the art. I think that it is more believable that they are just lyrics provided to spark this very speculation. There is also an article by reputable news outlet Entertainment Weekly. Weekly has been cited by Elite Daily for an interview with singer-songwriter Gorden and she laughs at the idea of Becky being one person in particular.

FALSE

The article I think is false is a story about students being stranded by a bus driver demanding gas money.

INVESTIGATE

For one – these claims are made on Twitter where anyone can post what they want openly. The page @DailyLoud is a self proclaimed hip-hop based page that is known to post viral clips, memes, parodies and more.

FIND TRUSTED COVERAGE

When doing a quick google search for this title – it does not appear on any reputable site. It only shows up on pages that are meant to be funny or post a lot of jokes. There is no trusted coverage on this article. What does appear is other many comments saying that this is the same dude that appears in many other videos that are spoofs.

TRACE CLAIMS

A major trace claim when someone could be trying to figure out if a news story is true or not is it does not have a water mark across it showing the name of a known parody site. You can not find any trace claims for this story. This parody also appears on another spoof news cite. This cite is not credible and adds to the support of it being false.

Natural vs. Neutral

The Case of Snehal Lunawat

Investigating Natural News

Investigate the Source

On September 7, 2022, an article was posted to the NaturalNews website discussing the death of Snehal Lunawat, a medical student from India who’s father claims she died as a result of taking the Covishield Covid vaccine. According to the article, Dilip Lunawat, Snehal’s father, is “demanding a payout” from Bill Gates who is described in the article as “one of the ghouls behind the shot’s creation.” The article also describes Covid vaccinations as “deadly drugs”, and says that “Chinese Virus injections are a death sentence to many.” One major standout point of Natural News’s article about this case is it’s very noticeable bias. According to the Institute of Strategic Dialogue (ISD), “NaturalNews is widely acknowledged to be a prolific source of disinformation relating to both health and politics.” ISD has also reported that NaturalNews has repeatedly used their platform to spread misinformation regarding the Covid-19 virus, and has right-wing ties through its founder Mike Adams. With this information, it can be assumed that NaturalNews’s intentions with this article is not to inform unbiasedly, but to persuade through the use of certain language.

Find Trusted Coverage

While NaturalNews’s coverage of Snehal Lunawat’s death does contain bias motives, the actual story regarding her death and her father’s response is true. After searching online regarding Snehal Lunawat’s condition, I found multiple articles discussing Snehal’s death and her father’s petition. Many of the sites discussing this case were India based news sites including but not limited to: Outlook Magazine, The Economic Times, Business Standard, Mint, and International Business Times. After reading every article regarding from the above mentioned outlets, none of the articles regarding this case presented the information in a way that NaturalNews did. While the articles do confirm the Snehal died, none of the articles confirmed that Snehal’s death was caused by the vaccine, but reported that this is what her father believed caused her death. None of the articles included any type of anti-vaccine rhetoric the way it did in NaturalNews.

Trace Claims

In NaturalNews’s article regarding Snehal Lunawat’s death, the article links its claims back to an article posted by The Hindustan Times on September 3, 2022. Similar to the other articles discussing this case, The Hindustan Times presented its information in an informative way without any anti-vaccine bias. Despite NaturalNews’s article using The Hindustan Times article as a source for its information, The Hindustan Times does not claim it Snehal’s death was from the result of the Covid vaccine that she took while NaturalNews does.

Investigating The Hindustan Times

Investigate the Source

On September 3, 2022, The Hindustan Times posted an article regarding the death of Snehal Lunawat. Unlike the article written for NaturalNews, The Hindustan Times article makes no confirmation that Snehal Lunwat’s death was officially caused by the vaccine nor does the article push any anti-vaccine rhetoric. According to a June 2022 report from the Reuters Institute, The Hindustan Times is the fifth most trusted news outlet with a 71% trust rating. With such a high approval rating and it’s lack of bias, this helps push the articles and the news outlets credibility.

Find Trusted Coverage

Along with The Hindustan Times, Snehal’s story has been covered by multiple other highly trusted India based news outlets (according to the Reuters Institute) including The Times of India, Economic Times, and The Indian Express all posted articles discussing the case.

Trace Claims

Though The Hindustan Time’s article regarding Snehal was written in September of this year, the article mentioned that Snehal had actually passed in March of last year. When searching this claim, articles from 2021 written by the Times of India and The Economic Times discuss Snehal’s death and her family’s reactions. In these articles the dates that are given for when she received her Covid vaccine and when she died are the exact same. While no reputable source officially claims her death was from the vaccine, the story and events leading up to her death were unfortunately real. With its lack of confirmation on what caused Snehal’s death, its absence of anti-vaccine language, and its reputable rating, The Hindustan Times’s article regarding Snehal Lunawat is credible while the one from NaturalNews is not.

Propagandists gonna’ propagandize…

Liar McLieface:

Stop!

Political speech is about changing people. I like me just fine thanks. Now if they want to question the premise of my beliefs, I’m all for that argument. But that knife cuts both ways, and political speech is not a full duplex system of communication, nor does it operate from a persistent base of reason. Which is what make the phrase: “political science” an oxymoron. In short, regarding “politics” as an honorable trade is self evidently an indication of corruption. Which is fine too. We are all hypocrites from time to time. Prosthelitizing to the contrary typically being contra-indicating. So no I wouldn’t trust this source, and I would trust it even less if I agreed with it.

Investigate!

According to wikipedia: the Gateway Pundit is a fake news site. Politifact gives it a 59% false rating. Reading it comes off as gradeschool fingerpointing. So the mark-one-eyeball, and an ounce of empathy is generally all that is needed here, but we have gone the distance for the sake of propriety.

Find Trusted Coverage?

I generally regard anything that holds itself out as “coverage” to be untrusted. But if I can find the full event, well that allows me to size things up for myself. I see nothing different about the Presidents exit than what I’ve seen from many other presidential speeches. The exit is uneventful, and apparently there is some communication to persons in the wings as he is exiting. This may suggest being “lost”, but that conclusion takes quite a lot of assumption to make that leap.

Trace

As for the joke. Yes he said it. Yes it does make one cringe. Searching for “Biden” and “Don’t Jump” reveals that this is a standard joke he uses at a lot of speeches. Such as a para-olympics event and a speech to the 82nd airborn. And yes, it is a cringe fest both other times. But the guy has been in politics for decades, so some things probably stick with him that maybe shouldn’t.

So this part of the article actually true. But I don’t care. Frankly I like the fact that he says some knuckleheaded stuff sometimes. The guy never made any promises about being superhuman.

Truth will ultimately prevail where there is pains to bring it to light. –George Washington

Stop!

An article in the Huffington post asserts that teens can’t tell the difference between real and fake news. Generally I would regard the title alone as enough to avoid reading the article. Main stream news talking about itself is typically self agrandizing, which is a filter pattern unto itself. However I have read a few well cited articled from the Huffington Post before (and others just as debased), but on the whole the Huffington Post cites sources more often in my experience.

Investigate

The Huffington Post (HP) is regarded as a a liberal leaning newspaper based on mediabiasfactcheck. Similar web gives it a only readership of 1.M per month, which is not that high compared to some other content providers.

I baselined mediafactcheck by checking the Washington Post against the Washington Times, which were predictably mischaracterized. Strangely HP was regarded as more liberal that the Washington Post. Which is really funny considering they are both conservative newspapers. (It isn’t who you preach at, it is who you preaching for) The HP is owned by Verizon, and the Washington Post hasn’t been liberal since the Beez took it over. So both are typical corporate ganda’ rags separated by various degrees of factual ambivalence.

Find Trusted Coverage

For me this is this is virtually impossible in this case. I regard truth as state. (as in stateful) which makes it an exceedingly rare thing to actually observe. It also means that I have to care quite a bit to persue it because the associated time allocation can be severe.

In this case what I really must say is that I don’t have a solid enough understanding of psychology to know what I don’t know. So even if I read the whole scientific paper, the odds of me intepreting it correctly would be a crapshoot. Which is cool; I like reading things way over my head. But: “It is the mark of an educated mind that it can consider something without adopting it” –Aristotle.

So no, I wouldn’t trust any coverage until I had enough puzzle pieces to at least identify a few edges. Which seems to be a rare view.

Trace

One thing I found a little interesting is the “article impact” header on the journal that published the original paper. This is a little suspect to me. This suggests a regard for distribution metrics over peer review.

The majority of the Bibliography references seem to be focused on creating metrics for consumer trust and belief. I have a personal bias about this subject that states (more or less) than if you are that obsessed about figuring out how to make somebody believe you, then you probably aught to suffer some for good measure. It is like politics. Wanting the job is a pretty good indicator you shouldn’t have it. Now maybe there is some raw science that may have some future use, but that was also true of the Manhattan Project.

Fake or Facts?

The internet is home to all sorts of news. Some real… many fake. How do you know which is real and what’s false? The SIFT method can help with that. Follow these steps to determine if your news article is true or not.

The SIFT Method

  • Stop
  • Investigate the source
  • Find other coverage
  • Trace claims

Fake

One person says one thing, another person disagrees… how do you know what is real? I have used the SIFT method to dig deeper and confirm that this is in fact an example of a fake news article regarding Illinois new law. I found other articles that have confirmed that this is in fact a false claim.

Stop

I stopped to take a look at the article as a whole. I made sure not to share it with anybody until I found out if it is a factual article or not. I later found out that it is in fact fake news.

Investigate the Source

I further investigated the source that shared this article – The Natural News. According to the Natural News Wikipedia description, this article is likely to be false as it is found from an unreliable, fake news source. Therefore, The Natural News is not a reliable source.

Find Other Coverage

After, I investigated the source itself, I dove deeper into looking at other articles that are sharing the same, or similar information. I found other articles that have discussed the new Illinois law, however, more reliable sources are further explaining the new law. The Natural News does not explain the law in the way that it truly is. There are other more reliable articles that have different claims.

Trace Claims

The claims that this topic is making have been proven to be false by an article from Snopes on the Illinois safe t law. These types of articles can be debunked by other more reliable fact checking sources.

Facts

Using my knowledge of the SIFT method, I have been able to confirm that the following source is reliable and that this is an example of a factual article discussing Twitter’s new deal with Elon Musk. The BBC has been found to be a very reliable source and I was able to successfully find the same story on other websites.

Stop

Before sharing this article, it is very important to use the SIFT method in order to decide whether it is providing factual information or not.

Investigate the Source

The BBC news is a very reliable source. Wikipedia’s description of the BBC explains that it is a large broadcasting source in the UK that has a very high budge. The size and budget of a company can help us determine if that source is reliable.

Find Other Coverage

It was very easy to find other websites discussing Twitter’s new deal with Elon Musk. A few sources that has similar information include, but are not limited to, The Washington Post, Forbes, and CNN. These are all known reliable sources.

Trace Claims

This article claims that Twitter has made a $44 billion deal with Elon Musk, which is a true claim that is being made by other news sites and articles.

Something True and Something False

False

Article: The Vaccine Surveillance Reports published by the U.K. government suggests that fully vaccinated people are developing AIDS

Investigate the Source:

According to en.wikipedia.org, The Exposé is a British conspiracy website known for posting misinformation about Covid-19. The Exposé is also referred to as The Daily Exposé and was created by Jonathan Allen-Walker in 2020. This website’s main goal was to spread harmful misinformation about the covid-19 vaccine. One article published by this website was titled “The Vaccine Surveillance Reports published by the U.K. government suggests that fully vaccinated people are developing AIDS“. There are also several other articles including, reuters.com, that published an article titled Fact Check-UK data does not show COVID-19 vaccination increases chance of death from virus which further provides evidence that The Exposé is spreading misinformation.

Find Trusted Coverage & trace claims:

According to sites such as healthfeedback.org, and the World Health Organization this is a false claim. For more information debunking false claims made by The Exposé follow the link to the Healthfeedback website.

True

Article: Understanding COVID-19 vaccine efficacy

Investigate the Source:

An article posted by Science.org titled Understanding COVID-19 vaccine efficacy (follow the link to the article) diligently analyses the COVID-19 vaccine and its effects. Science.org has been known to be a dependable source of information. This website discusses important current issues while citing reliable sources. According to mediabiasfactcheck.com Science.org is a highly reliable source.

Find Trusted Coverage & trace claims:

The article sources a total of 15 references that all link to different outlets of information that reinforce statements made by science.org. Including Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and US Flu VE Network (2020) which are both reliable sources of information.

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