In addition, the Mediawise Teen Fact-Checking Network learns more than 400 claims in two years, and teaches young people how to research information online.
The project is the brainchild of the non-profit Poynter Institute, supported by the Google News Initiative. During the COVID-19 pandemic, 18-year-old fact-checker Thea Barrett removed incorrect information, ranging from face to face or masks harmful to paranoia due to contact detection programs.
Masks do not cause hypercapnia or carbon dioxide poisoning – but keep people safe, she found. Some online users mistakenly believed that contact detection programs were automatically downloaded to a cell phone as a government spy tactic, but in reality, people voluntarily decided to prevent the spread of the virus.
Barrett also checked a piece of misinformation that said people should stay 27 feet apart to social distance, as opposed to the 6 feet recommended by the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention and the World Health Organization.
Mediawise fact-checking tips help teens spot all kinds of misinformation as just conspiracy theories, says Alexa Volland, multimedia reporter and head of TFCN. Mediawise was originally created to teach teens how to sort facts online – and evidence shows that high school students struggle with this.
“What makes the Teen Fact-Checking Network unique is that our teens use storytelling on social media to get viewers to walk through virtually every step of how they actually checked these allegations,” says Volland.
TFCN uses Instagram as their main platform and teaches teens skills and tools that professional journalists and fact checkers use, she says. Fact Checks share screenshots of their Google searches, as well as reverse image or video searches, and display the results.
Reverse searches showed that photos and videos related to the Black Lives Matter movement were taken out of context, she says. With this search, people can determine if an image exists online elsewhere, whether it was digitally manipulated or a few years old.
One viral video shows protesters trying to break into the White House, she says, but TFCN found the video was from Ohio.
TFCN encourages teenagers to ask themselves three questions, says Volland: “Who was behind the information? What is the evidence? And what do other sources say? ”
The network encourages young adults to go directly to trusted sources instead of viewing information on social media as fact, Barrett says. TFCN also asks teens to read sources from both sides of the aisle to determine what is true.
An Instagram poll found that 86% of respondents are more likely to go after their own facts after a TFCN story.
“We definitely got a little bit of backlash, but we got a lot of positive feedback because people see this wrong information circulating on their timeline,” says Barrett. ‘And they want to know what’s the truth? How can I keep my family safe? Is this viral post legal? ”
As first voter in November, Barrett says there is a lot of misinformation surrounding candidates and how to vote. With so much misinformation coming from the Trump administration, it’s hard to decipher what is real or false, she says.
With the Black Lives Matter movement, she says she sees young people sharing fake posts about things police officers or protesters did. She also sees many posts that make wrong claims about climate change.
This misinformation is linked to the fear of young people, she says.
“When something online gives you an intense emotional response, it’s an idea that it could be misinformation, if it makes you feel really angry or that it makes you feel valid,” says Volland. “Instead of impulsively redistributing, we encourage teens and everyone to just push the pause button and make sure they have the full context.”
Because teens’ timelines look so different from what adults see on social media, Volland says it was interesting to see what misinformation was directed at young people. Media literacy education teaches teens to ask whether their reading is supported by evidence or by other sources.
Teens tend to read and engage in one online resource, but TFCN encourages them to practice lateral reading – a term coined by the Stanford History Education Group to mean that multiple tabs should be opened and by all should be read, she says. The network also recommends that teens read beyond the headlines and keywords from articles they read on another page to learn more.
“As long as social media exists, I think wrong information, demands out of context will find their way onto people’s timelines,” says Volland. “And in my book, everything is worth checking.”
Karyn Miller-Medzon produced and edited this interview for broadcast with Tinku Ray. Allison Hagan adapted it for the internet.