According to a study by Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Twitter true stories rarely reach more than 1,000 people while the top 1 per cent of false stories is routinely shared by 1,000 to 100,000 people.
In this era of fake news, a US-based organization is teaching students in over 90 countries through a tool – Checkology – how to assess the flood of news and other information they encounter every day.
“We want to give them the ability to know what news and information to trust, share and act on as students, consumers and citizens,” said founder and CEO of News Literacy Project (NLP) Alan C. Miller at a group of journalists in Washington recently.
The key ways we do this is through Checkology, a virtual classroom, he said adding, “You might say we are the antidotes to ‘fake news’”.
Miller said every minute, 4.3 million videos are viewed on YouTube, 18 million text messages are shared and 375,000 apps are downloaded and “amid all of this traffic, there is no barrier to entry to those who seek to mislead, deceive or exploit.”
Explaining the alarming present trend, he said numerous apps can be found in the Google play story that can be installed on Android devices that enable ones to make his or her own fake news.
“It’s no longer going to just be about fake posts, tweets or websites but it will be about fake faces,” he said.
“A company called Nvidia has created an algorithm that makes fake faces through pixels forming a high-resolution image and a second algorithm that detects fake faces.”
The one algorithm generates fake faces and tests them against the detection algorithm until it gets good enough to make realistic fake faces that the second algorithm is unable to detect, he said.
This technology could replace the need for models in ads and stock ad images, but it could also be put to more nefarious uses, he cautioned.
There is another app called deep fake videos which literally puts words in someone else’s mouth that they never uttered, he said.
A study by RAND Corporation says “students need exactly this type of knowledge and these skills to effectively evaluate information sources, identify biases, and separate fact from opinion and falsehood.”
Miller said he founded the News Literacy Project more than a decade ago to teach middle school and high school students to teach them how to know what to believe in a digital age and to give them the tools to be informed and engaged participants in a democracy.
The basic Checkology lesson is free while advance learning will cost as little as $3 per student, he said.
Through Checkology students of grade 5 to 12 learn how to sort fact from fiction and they can complete the 13 lessons in about 20 hours.
The lessons cover topics such as understanding bias, the watchdog role of the press and the use of algorithms in personalizing what people see online. It is a web-based virtual classroom and no special software is needed.
