Verifying information online

1. Facts,
Fake news
and Facebook
UTAR, Kampar
July 12, 2017

2. 2
The Internet circa 1997

3. 3
The challenge in 2017 and beyond

4. Where is everyone?
2 billion monthly active users
Malaysia: >23 million
1b unique users/month, 6b hrs watched/month
300hrs of video uploaded/1 min
1.2b monthly active users
Malaysia: 75% penetration
600million active users/month
500m registered users
Malaysia: >3m
328m monthly active users
Malaysia: >2m (estimate)
200m daily active users
Malaysia: ?
4
Sources: Statista(Apr, 2017), ExpandedRamblings.com, Facebook, Linkedin, Twitter,
Socialbakers.com ,YouTube , GreyReview, Google, Tumblr, Instagram, Whatsapp, DMR

5. Facebook > China/India

6. DFTZ and e-commerce

8. The future of messaging

9. Media diet has changed

10. Edelman Trust Barometer 2017

11. 11

12. 12

13. Competition from unlikely places

14. Media today: Big Data
•Volume
•Velocity
•Variety
•Veracity
•Value

16. Quake or fake?
16

17. Fake or real?

20. Act of terrorism or crazy guy?

21. Trump Effect

23. Photo purportedly of recent refugees
were actually of rally in 2012

24. Fooling the public is an agenda

26. How journalists
attribute and verify
information

27. Verifying information on social media
• Examine profile: bio,
links, email, previous
updates, retweets,
friends, followers
• Check time of update
esp. breaking news
• Check photos, location,
correlate with other
tweets, updates
• Send email, message,
ask for permission to
use photos
Source:
http://stevebuttry.wordpress.com/2013/01/21/how-to-verify-information-from-tweets-check-it-out/

28. Attribution for journalists
• Always ask for permission: even though you are
their ‘friend’ on social networks doesn’t mean
they want to be quoted. Respect privacy.
• Be skeptical: Photos, videos can be manipulated
• Always attribute to primary source: plagiarism
can get you in serious trouble
• Find and link to primary source. For images: Use
tineye.com, images.google.com
• Caveat: “This information as yet to be verified
through independent sources”
Link: http://stevebuttry.wordpress.com/2011/10/31/you-can-quote-me-on-that-advice-on-attribution-for-
journalists/

29. 29
Verify before spreading

30. Be a hoax-debunker
and stem the fakery

31. Advice for future debunker
• Be skeptical of anything you receive
• Check the URL
• Check the publisher, source, author, date
• Google the headline with the word “hoax”
in it
• Do reverse image search on Google
• Do not share unverified gory pictures and
videos, especially of children
• Do not share memes unless the people in
the photo are clearly identified eg. a
celebrity parody

33. “Technology is nothing. What's
important is that you have a faith
in people, that they're basically
good and smart, and if you give
them tools, they'll do wonderful
things with them,”
Steve Jobs

34. “Technology is nothing. What's
important is that you have a faith
in people, that they're basically
good and smart, and if you give
them tools, they'll do wonderful
things with them,”
….or Albert
Einstein?