With the Covid19, we are being bombarded with information, on social media, whatsapp, and other more traditional media channels.
The amount of info we get on a daily basis on our whatsapp is just.. Staggering.

And what’s worse, most of it is false, not to say fake. And it creates a lot of anxiety

So we figured, maybe it would be useful to remind all of us how to spot fake or false news.

And btw these are not the same thing:

Sometimes news are just wrong, it’s an honest mistake.

Sometimes they are fake, they are meant to harm, destabilize, incite panic. Etc.

But in both cases, they need to NOT be shared (and debunked)

So here are some basic rules that you can rely on to check if the info you just got on your family whatsapp group is correct or not:

-Assume by default that the vast majority of the news that you get on whatsapp are fake or wrong. On fb and insta, it’s not much better

–Check the source(s)!!!!! When you learn journalism, they teach you that any information needs to be corroborated by at least 2 different people who are not related (so no, the same info coming from 2 people of the same political party is not accurate) OR by one expert that you trust and has a proven record on the field you’re interviewing them for.

So the next time you get any kind of info on whatsapp, ALWAYS ask for the source.

And no, the source is not your cousin who forwarded the info, it’s the person who originally sent the info. And yes, that might be hard, or almost impossible, to track back. If that’s the case, please please please do yourself (and your friends! ) a favor and don’t forward it to all your contacts. You surely have a group of trusted friends or people who can verify this info with you/for you. Send it to them and ask for verification.

-If your source is a media, well, you probably know by now that it does not mean that it is true or correct. A lot of media in Lebanon belong to political parties and act as mouthpieces for their parties. Though it’s not automatic. Some journalists do a pretty good job at covering the news and/or analyzing the events despite working for media that belongs to a traditional party. It takes a bit of time to find them, but once you do, you can trust them and make yourself an opinion.

And .. that’s it, actually. It’s not more complicated than this.

Now, can we just all slow down a bit and just do that?