Skip to Main Content

Fake News: How to determine Truthiness: Social Media

How to Spot a Fake Twitter Post

Check the account history of the source. Two red flags are: the number of posts and how long the account has been active. If it claims to be a well know source(like CNN or CBS) and only has a few posts in its history that is a clue. If it's a well know source and the account has only been active a short time that is another red flag.

Images of an event are often reused to deceive people. You can check if an image has been used before on a reverse image search service like TinEye.

Which of the following accounts is fake? How can you tell?

Fake Videos

Nearly all of us have been taken in by a video that was later found to have been doctored or faked. It is fairly easy to edit a video so that it looks like you made the basket or the hawk picked up the snake. Here are some of the most famous faked videos that fooled millions:

These Viral Videos Were Fake?!

Some tips to help you tell if a video is fake:

The Physics of Fake Videos

How to Verify a YouTube Video

Eli Pariser: Beware of Online Filter Bubbles

Social Media Algorithms and Bias