How to avoid misinformation about the war

[KS Toronado]

Social media is flooded with out-of-context videos and images users claim are coming from Israel or Gaza. Finding
the original source is key.

But, like any conflict we’ve watched from our phone screens in the last decade, misinformation is rampant — including
videos claiming to show Israeli children being held in cages and a fake BBC reporter fanning the flames of war.
Fortunately, as with any breaking news event, like the ongoing war in Ukraine, some journalistic thinking and media
literacy techniques can help you avoid sharing misinformation.

As director of the Poynter Institute’s digital media literacy initiative MediaWise, I recommend first asking three
questions developed by the Stanford History Education Group in its study of how fact-checkers navigate the internet:

Who’s behind the information?
What’s the evidence?
What do other sources say?

To answer the first question, leave the page you’re on, open a few tabs, and use keywords to find out more about
a user or news outlet from a post. This is called lateral reading.

More at link....

https://www.politifact.com/article/2023/oct/12/social-media-is-flooded-with-out-of-context-videos/

[Warpy]

1. Avoiding Xitter would top my list

if I didn't already avoid everything but the dog and kitty videos.

War sub Reddits would be next.

Well, unless carnage is your thing and you skip out on the propaganda. I've seen enough IRL that it doesn't do a thing for me but get me depressed.

[CaptainTruth]

12. Avoiding non-reputable sources everywhere, including Xitter.

There are plenty of reputable sources on Xitter, just put them in a private List & view the List.

[ancianita]

2. Thank you, KS. Very helpful. May I add this...

Wikipedia has a team of writers who collect prominent disinformation that's distributed far and wide, and as usual, provides hyperlinks and sources. This entry is up-to-date as of yesterday.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disinformation_in_the_2023_Israel–Hamas_war

[Ms. Toad]

6. Your link broke at the hyphen.

Here is an unbroken link.

[ancianita]

7. Thanks. I've no idea how that happened.

I posted your unbroken link, but it still showed up as broken. I refreshed the Wikip page and it still shows up as broken. Yet I have a tab open to the article that won't copy/paste here. idk wtf

All I can suggest, then, beyond your link, is that folks type "Disinformation" in the Wikipedia search box, which then pops up all kinds of Disinfo entries, including the Israel-Hamas War entry.

[Ms. Toad]

10. Certain characters break links.

A hyphen is one of them. The only way I am aware of to avoid the link breaking is to bury it in a blind link (like I did).

Copy/paste the phrase (including the plain-text words that follow the link) into the URL and it takes you there. That's how I got there.

[ancianita]

11. I'll try to apply this info, thanks.

[Emrys]

3. On Twitter, BBC Verify journalist Shayan Sardarizadeh has been doing fantastic work

debunking misattributed videos etc.

His feed is here: https://twitter.com/Shayan86

More about BBC Verify here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-65650822

[MOMFUDSKI]

4. The first casualty of war

is the truth.

[Ms. Toad]

5. Excellent Resource!

This is something which should be taught in high school, or perhaps even earlier.

It is the same process which can be used to check other material before posting, and to determine if something is generative AI, rather than human-generated (especially images).

In addition to Tineye and Google Lens, here are a few sites which are specific to AI images.

https://app.illuminarty.ai/
https://huggingface.co/spaces/umm-maybe/AI-image-detector
https://www.aiornot.com/

Note, they don't all agree with each other, so you will still have to use context. But they are at least a good first cut.

[Maru Kitteh]

13. Those are also excellent resources, thanks! nt

[erronis]

9. Any facts to support your assertion? Otherwise you are as guilty as any other

purveyors of fake stuff.

Provide some credible references, not just your personal (or organizational) opinion.

[liberalla]

14. Bookmarking! Thank you!