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Fact check time! I haven’t blogged here in ages, but the weird memes and false “facts” just keep coming.

Here’s a meme I’ve seen several times recently, and it jumped out to me immediately.

UbBDDLMoAW

First, has it been deleted three times? I have no way of fact-checking if it was “deleted”, but I know what appears to be the original post was flagged as “false news” on Facebook, which I’m thankful is something that happens now, though not often enough.

Second, does it even make sense, mathematically? Uh, no, not really. Here’s a fact check article on this from PolitiFact.

Third, this meme actually seems to show the problem with the Electoral College–by showing how little the vote of an individual in a more populous state compares to the vote of an individual in a more sparse, rural state. Why should my vote mean so little for president just because I live in New York instead of North Dakota? It doesn’t make much sense to me as a New  Yorker. I’m no political expert, and I know there are arguments to be made for the Electoral College, but this meme doesn’t seem an effective (or accurate) one.

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Fact CheckI still see people sharing and following The Palmer Report. Please, please don’t. It’s not reliable, responsible journalism. If you’re annoyed by people on the right sharing whatever fits their bias without fact checking, don’t be the same on the left.

Relevant links:

https://www.businessinsider.com/the-palmer-report-bill-louise-mensch-2017-5

https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/palmer-report/ 

https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2017/02/viva-la-resistance-content/515532/

And again, some resources for fact checking from (or source checking in this case) on my resources page: https://isthatafact.blog/fact-check-resources/

 

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No, this is not about fact-checking the current president’s tweets, though they are often false. This is about how people can fake tweets from his twitter and other people fall for it (so many people, including some of my Facebook friends).

This particular tweet went viral earlier this week, and it’s not real.

atweet

How do we know it’s fake? It looks like a real tweet, right? Well, there’s its ridiculousness and misspelling, but that can be believable nowadays. But you can also easily fact check if a Trump tweet is genuine. First you can use Twitter’s own Advanced Search. You can use it to search words or phrases or all tweets on particular dates by a particular person. It’s very handy.  But with Trump in particular, you can also search on the Trump Twitter Archive website, which has a handy search function.

There’s no need to just guess at whether a tweet you see is genuine–there are ways to do the research before you spread misinformation–or you can spread it as long as you make clear you know it’s fake and a joke.

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bowers
https://twitter.com/BettyBowers/status/954827436847521794

This tweet is both unacceptable and unnecessary–or rather, it’s unnecessary that it be so wrong. The video shown is actually from the Women’s March in 2017, not from this year, but the tweet only hashtags #WomensMarch2018 and doesn’t mention that it’s an old video. This gives people who hate the Women’s Marches fuel to deny the crowds that did actually exist this year. All this tweet needed was a mention that the video was from last year and a link to any number of articles about all the marches this year. Or they could have just taken footage or photographs from this year to use instead. I was there in NYC yesterday. There were plenty of people getting photos of the massive crowd. The march was so big that we crawled along shoulder-to-shoulder with masses of people. One photo of that would have been impressive enough.Here’s one I took:

26815471_10156215309860362_355262094295232394_n

 

Obviously I didn’t get a bird’s eye view but there were other photos of that event that did.  A quick google search found me plenty of articles and images, like this one. there were people as far as the eye could see and most of the time there was little room to even let my sign down for a minute so I could get something out of my backpack. It was crazy packed.

So why use last year’s video? I just don’t get it. I don’t know if they were just lazy or just thought that video was so impressive it should be used again.

How did I know it was last year’s video? Easy. It looked really familiar, so I wondered if it might be a video I’d seen before. So, I clicked on the source (which was at least provided) and then on the media from that source, and sure enough that video was posted a year ago. I do give the Mrs. Betty Bowers account credit for linking to the source, so that anyone who checks will know it’s not from this year, but I know most people will not check, so they should have mentioned that the video was old or just used new footage.

I know people will roll their eyes at my fastidiousness, but we need to hold higher standards and not just blindly share false information or information that is old but implied to be new. Yes, I do think this is important. Getting your information right is important in this political climate and with so many disregarding truth altogether.

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Where do so many crazy conspiracy theories and nonsense stories originate on the internet? Click here for a good article on Sophos about the sources for a lot of insanity that seeps into social media and the rest of the web from weird fringe communities. You may not ever tiptoe into those corners of the internet, but their creepy conspiracy theories may affect you anyway. Hat tip to my friend James Hofsiss for sending me this link.

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I’ve noticed for a while now that annoying calls are coming to both my home phone and my cell phone that look like local calls. Sometimes they even have the same exchange numbers as my phone (those first three numbers after the area code)–unusual because not even my other local friends have the same exchange numbers, so now I don’t even answer a number that looks too much like my own number. One day I also had a woman call and say she was returning a call that had come from my number–after I hung up I suspected she had been called by someone else faking my number, so I did a little internet research and found this page from the FTC about how scammers can fake caller ID info. If you’ve been getting calls that look a lot like your number, you are not alone. It’s a new scam and it’s dangerous for people who assume they are real local numbers and pick up expecting it to be a neighbor or local business or organization. The link has tips for handling these calls. Please share this info with friends and family who might be vulnerable to falling for scam calls.

Another thing you need to know is about a new scam where you get a call about an iCloud breach. I learned about this today when I got a call on my landline. The name said Apple Inc. and the phone number had my same area code. I answered out of curiosity and heard a recording telling me that my data was exposed in an iCloud breach and I needed to call a number (the number started with 833) or I could hold to talk to someone before I used any of my Apple products. (I don’t remember verbatim what was said, but that was the gist.) This annoying call came 5 times today (and left voicemails, which scam callers don’t always do) before I had the time to get on the phone company’s website and block the number. As soon as I heard the first call, I was skeptical (I mean, of course, that’s just how I am). So I got online and just googled “Apple iCloud phishing calls” and found this helpful article from MacWorld.  It explains that it is indeed just a scam and some tips for how you can tell it’s a fraud (some of the same things were red flags for me and some was just my skeptical instinct).

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There’s more than just fake news out there, there are also Twitter bots and fake product reviews. I have a couple links to help with both of these.

First, if you see a suspicious Twitter account (suspicious maybe because all it does is post weird political memes 24/7, for example), you can check it at Botometer. It can tell you how probable it is that a particular account is a bot rather than a fellow human. It can also check followers (of your own or another account) to see which might be more likely to be bots. I don’t know how practical it is for large-scale bot-detecting, but it’s a fun little tool if you see an account you think might be fake.

Another handy website is Fakespot. Fakespot can tell you how reliable the reviews for a particular product is. It covers Amazon, Yelp, TripAdvisor, and the Apple App store. So, for instance, if you are searching for bluetooth headphones on Amazon, you might, like me, sort the results by the highest rating. Then the top of the list is a brand you’ve never heard of, so you can plug it into Fakespot and find out if those reviews are really reliable. If it looks like the assessment below, then you know you probably need to keep looking:

fakespot

I’ve noticed that electronics (especially those with brand names I’ve never heard in my life) are especially notorious for fake reviews.

If you see results more like this, though, you know the reviews are more legit:

fakespot2

To learn more about how it works, check out their About Us page.

 

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It’s truly disgusting that people will make up hoaxes on the heels of a horrible tragedy, but it happens.  Here’s one link from BuzzFeed with many hoaxes that already popped up in the wake of yesterday’s shooting in Las Vegas. You can see from this list (if you can bear to look at it) that these lies can be dangerous–people yesterday were accusing innocent people of being the shooter. Angry vigilantes might not see the correction soon enough and go after someone completely innocent.

And here is a link with info about Las Vegas shooting hoaxes and how to avoid spreading misinformation like this yourself (with tips much like what I’ve shared–no matter the source of information, the ways to check are the same).

ISIS has claimed responsibility for the attack, but experts are doubtful (and ISIS has made false claims before–big surprise–murderers also lie)  so I’m skeptical of this claim until we learn more. I’ve seen that it’s very possibly a false claim from multiple reliable sources.

Finally, here’s an excellent article on how to spot lies on social media after a mass shooting. Do a very little homework and you can avoid adding to the spread of lies.

Always check your sources–random Twitter accounts are not good sources. Many sites that claim to be news sources are not good sources. Check MediaBiasFactCheck.com for some help with discerning what are good sources or you can do like some of my friends do and ask me about a story you’re not sure about–if I have time I’ll help check. I’m lainiefig on Twitter. Please let friends know if they are spreading misinformation. It’s obvious Facebook and Twitter can’t catch it all.

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Do you ever wonder why I get so passionate about fake news stories, false memes, bad science, and myths? Sometimes I hear statements like, “Well, it definitely could be true.” Or “Even if it’s not true it’s a good story.”  NOPE.  First of all, truth matters. Facts matter. I find it upsetting to see people spreading false stories either from the right or the left. Of course, I have a bias, but I will fact check anyone, even if they might share my general bias (my friends can attest to this).

Second of all, fake news can have horrible consequences. There’s a story about that in today’s The Daily podcast, which is produced by the New York Times. It’s a fascinating and disturbing story of one fake news story and its awful consequences. It is important to check your sources and be careful what information you spread. This story shows why. Click here for the story from The Daily.