Ask Lemmy

34101 readers

1016 users here now

A Fediverse community for open-ended, thought provoking questions

Rules: (interactive)

1) Be nice and; have fun

Doxxing, trolling, sealioning, racism, and toxicity are not welcomed in AskLemmy. Remember what your mother said: if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all. In addition, the site-wide Lemmy.world terms of service also apply here. Please familiarize yourself with them

2) All posts must end with a '?'

This is sort of like Jeopardy. Please phrase all post titles in the form of a proper question ending with ?

3) No spam

Please do not flood the community with nonsense. Actual suspected spammers will be banned on site. No astroturfing.

4) NSFW is okay, within reason

Just remember to tag posts with either a content warning or a [NSFW] tag. Overtly sexual posts are not allowed, please direct them to either !asklemmyafterdark@lemmy.world or !asklemmynsfw@lemmynsfw.com. NSFW comments should be restricted to posts tagged [NSFW].

5) This is not a support community.

It is not a place for 'how do I?', type questions. If you have any questions regarding the site itself or would like to report a community, please direct them to Lemmy.world Support or email info@lemmy.world. For other questions check our partnered communities list, or use the search function.

6) No US Politics.

Please don't post about current US Politics. If you need to do this, try !politicaldiscussion@lemmy.world or !askusa@discuss.online

Reminder: The terms of service apply here too.

Partnered Communities:

Logo design credit goes to: tubbadu

founded 2 years ago

MODERATORS

Bluetreefrog@lemmy.world

TheSaneWriter@lemm.ee

Asudox@lemmy.world

lemmy_bot@lemmy.world

beefbaby182@lemmy.world

ModeratorCan@lemmy.world

neidu3@sh.itjust.works

asudox@lemmy.asudox.dev

candyman337@lemmy.world

candyman337@sh.itjust.works

159

How do I fact-check the news (step by step)? (lemmy.today)

submitted 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) by suspicious_hyperlink@lemmy.today to c/asklemmy@lemmy.world

44 comments fedilink hide all child comments

I have recently talked to a Chinese friend of mine who started talking about how smart Trump is etc. She previously only gained her knowledge through the Chinese media and not the “western propaganda”, so it was her first exposure to the non-CCP-controlled stuff. I told her “you sound like you read FOX news”. She replied with “hahah yes, how did you know?”

This made me realize that she is very prone to getting manipulated and not doing any fact-checking. However, this situation made me reflect on my own news-sourcing skills.

How do you deal with the issue and what can I do step-by-step to verify the news that I read myself and at the same time a way that I can recommend to my Chinese friend so that she doesn’t fall for the most obvious tricks so easily?

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] AbouBenAdhem@lemmy.world 1 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

If you don’t have independent confirmation for the specific event, you could do a simple application of Bayes' theorem.
If (say) FOX is reporting something and you’re not sure how much credence to give it, ask yourself:

A. How often does this sort of thing happen in general? (Check historical sources.)

B. How often does FOX claim this type of thing happens? (Check Google trends.)

C. How likely is FOX to report this if it actually happens? (If it fits their narrative, probably close to 1.)

Then you can estimate the likelihood of the report being true as AC/B.