Fact-Check Central

Social Media BS Detection - A User's Guide

Above all else, just say No to op-ed, unhinged conspiracy theorists, & hysterical extremists, especially those that parasitically cite each other in circles. A figure with helpful guidelines is provided below.

Finally, bear in mind that if any source has to go out of its way to advertise itself as centrist (with monikers like "Fair and Balanced" for instance) it's probably because their track record for objectivity and thoroughness doesn't speak for itself. ;-)

4) URL's can be revealing

Established mainstream institutions generally have URL's based on high-level TLD's (Top Level Domains) such as .com, .net, .org, .edu, .gov, or .co.** (where ** is a prominent country code such as "uk" for the United Kingdom)--particularly those based in the United States & Western Europe. If a "news" site has a URL ending in .biz, .xxx, .com.co or the like, proceed with caution... especially if it has an Eastern European country code. Dozens of fake news sites that were bread-&-butter for Trump supporters during the election were recently traced to a group of Macedonian teenagers (Wikipedia, 2016b; 2016e; Silverman & Alexander, 2016). Fake news websites often try to gain credibility with names &/or URL's that parasitically mimic those of legitimate outlets. For instance, abcnews.com is the URL for ABC News' website, but abcnews.com.co is a known fake news site. Politico (politico.com) is a respected non-partisan political-journalism organization--Politicalo is not. Global warming skeptics & industry-funded "astroturf" groups are notorious for this sort of thing as well.

5) Fake news website lists are your friend

Since the 2016 POTUS election cycle a great deal of research has been done on the prevalence of fake news and propaganda, and their impact on public opinion (Allcott & Gentzkow, 2017; Barthel et al., 2016; Conti et al., 2017; Rogers & Bromwich, 2016; etc.). The most notorious fake news sites are well-known, and a number of online resources document them (Wikipedia, 2016b; Zimdars, 2016; King, 2016; Dicker, 2016). Inflammatory stories should never be shared until their sources have been checked against these lists.

6) Much can be learned about a source from its "About Us" page

Most news & commentary websites have an "About Us" page where you will learn something about the people running them. Legitimate ones have established, broadly-based resources & are staffed by qualified professionals. Some will lean to the Left (e.g. - NPR or BBC), whereas others will lean to the Right (e.g. - The Wall Street Journal or The Economist), but all will have moderate agendas. Those that are run by pissed-off, highly-partisan activists are rarely objective or thorough enough to be trusted.