‘Fake news,’ a term used to describe information that is often intended to mislead or influence people for nefarious purposes, is rampant online, particularly on social media. News and media literacy skills, namely knowing how to parse truthful and trustworthy information from misinformation, disinformation, propaganda, lies, and hoaxes, are critical for democracy. The resources listed here enable people to more easily spot fake news and to guard against believing it and inadvertently sharing it with others. Feel free to email us at info@civilination.org to let us know who else should be added to this list.
A Field Guide to Fake News and Other Information Disorders
A project of the Public Data Lab with support from First Draft, A Field Guide to Fake News and Other Information Disorders explores the use of digital methods to study false viral news, political memes, trolling practices and their social life online.
AllSides
AllSides exposes bias and provides multiple angles on the same story so readers can get the full picture of an issue, not just one angle.
A Multi-dimensional Approach to Disinformation: Report of the Independent High Level Group on Fake News and Online Disinformation
A Multi-dimensional Approach to Disinformation, published by Directorate-General for Communications Networks, Content and Technology (European Commission), offers a multi-dimensional approach to countering fake news and the spread of disinformation online.
Bellingcat’s Online Investigation Toolkit
Bellingcat, a UK-based open-source and social media investigation website, has compiled a comprehensive, regularly-updated list of tools that includes satellite and mapping services, photo and video verification tools, IP and website analysis, and websites to archive web pages.
Bot
Bot is a bot-tracking site that uses advance machine learning techniques to detect political propaganda bots on Twitter.
Digital Forensic Research Lab
The Atlantic Council is a nonpartisan organization that galvanizes U.S. leadership and engagement in the world, in partnership with allies and partners, to shape solutions to global challenges. Its Digital Forensic Research Lab identifies, exposes, and explains disinformation where and when it occurs using open source research, as well as protecting democratic institutions and norms from those who would seek to undermine them in the digital space.
Digital Verification
Amnesty International’s Citizen Evidence Lab has created free resources for researchers, investigators, students, journalists and others to explore and share investigative techniques in human rights, among them resources about Digital Verification.
EU DisinfoLab
EU DisinfoLab is an independent non-profit organization focused on tackling disinformation campaigns targeting the European Union, its member states, core institutions, and core values. It collects and organizes critical information, findings, tools and other resources useful for activists and experts.
Fake News: A Library Resource Round-Up
Programming Librarian, a website of the American Library Association Public Programs Office, features Fake News: A Library Resource Round-Up, which provides a list of LibGuides and resources about how to identify fake news.
First Draft Verification Toolbox
First Draft’s Verification Toolbox is designed to help simplify and streamline verification for beginners.
Hamilton 68
Hamilton 68 is a bot-tracking site.
How to Spot Fake News
FactCheck.org, a non-partisan political fact-checker and project of the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania, provides a list of recommendations for how to identify fake news.
Information Disorder Toolbox
The Information Disorder Toolbox, offered by First Draft, a non-profit tackling misinformation globally, features information about mis-, dis- and malinformation. Part 1 of the toolbox provides a glossary that features the most frequently used and commonly misunderstood words, acronyms and phrases that relate to information disorder. Part 2 maps the thirteen sub-categories of the information disorder space. Part 3 features downloadable graphics, available under a a Creative Commons license, that help explain information disorder.
MediaWise
MediaWise is a digital literacy project that aims to teach 1 million teenagers, through a curriculum called Civic Online Reasoning, how to sort differentiate fact from fiction online. The MediaWise project is part of the Google News Initiative and funded by Google.org.
Navigating Digital Information
Navigating Digital Information is a 10-part Navigating Digital Information series, appearing on the CrashCourse YouTube channel, that teaches viewers how to navigate the internet and assess whether what they see online is factual: Introduction to Crash Course Navigating Digital Information #1; The Facts about Fact Checking: Crash Course Navigating Digital Information #2; Check Yourself with Lateral Reading: Crash Course Navigating Digital Information #3; Who Can You Trust? Crash Course Navigating Digital Information #4; Using Wikipedia: Crash Course Navigating Digital Information #5; Evaluating Evidence: Crash Course Navigating Digital Information #6; Evaluating Photos & Videos: Crash Course Navigating Digital Information #7; Data & Infographics: Crash Course Navigating Digital Information #8; Click Restraint: Crash Course Navigating Digital Information #9; and Social Media: Crash Course Navigating Digital Information #10.
Network Contagion Research Institute
The Network Contagion Research Institute is a politically neutral non-profit organization whose mission it is to track, expose, and combat misinformation, deception, manipulation, and hate across social media channels. Its integrated technology platform Contextus tracks and exposes the epidemic of virtual deception, manipulation, and hate, as they spread between social media communities.
NewsGuard
NewsGuard fights misinformation with credibility ratings of more than 4,500 news websites ratings displayed as icons next to links on all the major search engines, social media sites, and platforms. It uses nine journalistic criteria to assess websites’ credibility and transparency, then assigns them a ratings categories to enable readers to understand the overall track record of each online site. NewsGuard offers plugins for Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge, Mozilla Firefox, or Apple Safari browsers.
News Literacy Playbook
The News Literacy Project created a global playbook for teaching news literacy. It features information about the history of misinformation; a curriculum that addresses how to filter news and information, how to exercise civic freedoms, how to navigate the information landscape, determining what to believe; and a list of international news literacy resources.
News Literacy Project
News Literacy Project is a nonpartisan national education nonprofit that works with educators and journalists to teach middle school and high school students how to differentiate fact from fiction in the digital age.
Stopfake.org’s How to Identify a Fake
Stopfake.org, which examines and analyzes Kremlin propaganda, features information to help identify fake photos and fake videos, and evaluate the validity of witness statements and western mass media news.
Too good to be true? How to verify online images
WikiTribune offers a list of steps to take in order to determine whether images and videos are authentic.