4 Ways to Spot a Fake News Story | What the Stuff?!

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• published: 23 Jan 2016
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It has become more difficult to spot a fake news story in today's digital age. But don't worry, Josh has a few tips for you! Article: 10 Ways to Spot a Fake News Story: http://history.howstuffworks.com/history-vs-myth/10-ways-to-spot-fake-news-story.htm Subscribe http://bit.ly/1AWgeM7 Twitter https://twitter.com/HowStuffWorks Facebook https://www.facebook.com/HowStuffWorks Google+ https://plus.google.com/+howstuffworks Website http://www.howstuffworks.com Watch More https://www.youtube.com/HowStuffWorks Music: "Secrets Instrumental" by YEYEY http://freemusicarchive.org/music/YEYEY/The_Vision_Instrumentals/Secrets_Instrumental Video Clips: Citizen Kane - How to Run a Newspaper https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tzhb3U2cONs The Daily Mail Song https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5eBT6OSr1TI • Reputable News Sites Aren't Carrying It • One of the easiest ways to figure out if a news story is legitimate or not is to check it against the stories posted on other reputable sites. • Let's stick with the example of the President suffering a heart attack. You become alarmed, but realize that you don’t recognize the website. • Let's call it BigNews.com. Just search online for "President heart attack" and see what comes up. • If sites like The New York Times, CBS or CNN are running the same story, it's likely true. • I know what you’re thinking – c’mon, man. Why is this even on the list? It’s so simple. Yes, you’re right. Unfortunately, a lot of people don’t search for additional sources. • And one search might not cut it. Make sure to delve a bit deeper. • If The New York Times, CBS and CNN all cite BigNews.com as the source for their heart attack story, that puts you right back where you started from. • You need to find a reputable source that has done its own reporting on the story to ensure its truth and accuracy. • Think that's excessive? In January 2014, the Daily Mail ran a photo of smoggy Beijing in the early morning. A giant, rectangular TV screen in the foreground showed a beautiful sunrise. The story underneath was titled, "China starts televising the sunrise on giant TV screens because Beijing is so clouded in smog." • Time magazine and CBS picked up the story, crediting the Daily Mail as the source. • But they soon issued a correction when, after finally doing their own reporting, they discovered it was a fabrication. The TV screen existed, but the sunrise shot was part of a tourism ad. • The Website Has an Odd Domain Name • One of the easier ways to spot suspect stories is if they're located on a news site with a strange domain name. • Sometimes if a story originates on a site ending in ".ru" or ".co", that's a red flag. ".Ru" is used by the Russian federation, while ".co" is used by Colombia; these two extensions are considered suspect. • Other untrustworthy sites will try to imitate a reputable, well-known website by incorporating it into its own URL; for example, using NBC as part of its URL: www.nbc-real-news.com. • Another trick? Using nearly the same URL as a popular site, omitting a letter or two, or misspelling the name. Very long, complex domain names are another sign something might be amiss • Remember: anyone can pay for any domain name they'd like. • In the lead-up to the 2016 presidential election, for example, someone who was ticked at Republican candidate Carly Fiorina snagged the domain name "carlyfiorina.org." • The site illustrates, through frowny faces, the 30,000 people she laid off as head of Hewlett-Packard. • This isn't a story, of course. But if you read a story on, say, the evils of butter, and it's on a site called "ilovebutter.org," you should suspect something slippery is going on. • Get it? Slippery? Because butter… nevermind.