Spotting Fake News in Five Easy Steps. Also, why I’m quitting Facebook.

stacey richter
10 min readDec 13, 2019

Before we get into this, let me state for the record that this article has nothing to do with whether there is a war on Christmas, or whether Mick Mulvaney is in obvious distress.

This article is also not intended for anyone who believes that our entire government is a sham and every single “mainstream” journalist is in some kind of giant canoodling club that meets over huge teleconferences and hatches nefarious plots to trick everybody.

I’m quitting Facebook, by the way. Every time I log on, I grit my teeth and get a stomachache. Mark Zuckerberg’s backroom business model has become the front door of the Facebook experience.

This is relevant. An ability to spot fake news depends on an understanding of the social media business model.

How does Mark Zuckerberg Make Money?

Mark, along with Google and every other social media, search or regular media platform makes money on ads. The more ads you see, the more money Mark and friends make.

How do you see more ads?

By spending the most time on their websites.

How does Mark Zuckerberg increase the time you spend on his website?

By feeding you interesting, exciting information you react to on an emotional level. Information that presses your buttons. Stuff you can’t wait to share. What does this fascinating information look like?

Let’s start with what it does *not* look like:

What Does *Not* Press your emotional buttons

  • Loose ends that don’t weave into any particularly spellbinding narrative
  • Tales describing acts and people that are not exactly evil, but nor are they pure of heart. They fall somewhere in the messy middle
  • No revelations of dark and sordid secrets, especially secrets kept by somebody representing an institution you don’t like
  • Paragraphs that do not cleanly prove a point you’ve been trying to make

What do all these “nots” have in common? They all tend to be present in fact-based news stories that communicate a balanced perspective.

Actual news is generally speaking pretty boring. Usually, it is not “sticky.” Nobody is pounding fists into a table destroying their opponent with amazing repartee.

Facebook has no incentive to weed out tantalizing fake news because people who are fired up spend more time on Facebook and cause others to spend more time on Facebook. Mark Zuckerberg loves when people spend time on Facebook, he’s clearly got every vested interest to promote, not discourage, fake news. Because ad revenue.

The final chapter in my Facebook history started this morning when I saw a post Aunt Pricilla had put up. This woman is well-educated and well-spoken. She cares about her country and she cares about her religion and there is nothing bad to be said about either.

I’m quitting Facebook because I, in no way, want to be a party to someone like Mark Zuckerberg who is taking advantage of Aunt Pricilla’s allegiance to God and nation. Mark Zuckerberg brazenly and deliberately makes money on the backs and hearts of people like my Auntie. And he’s exploiting me for caring about it and/or interacting with her posts on Facebook. Count me out.

Facebook is free and you know what they say, “When it’s free, you’re not the customer, you’re the product.”

So let’s get to the Five easy steps to spot fake news:

First, take a look at the post my aunt shared. It can be our case study for spotting fake news. Because this post is very fake. And yet Aunt Pricilla believed it to be true. She believed it enough to put it out there, under her name, to all her friends and family. Here’s what she shared:

One of the wives of one of the Navy Seals killed this weekend was interviewed on the Today Show. The interviewer asked her what she would say to her children about their dad and how she would want them to remember him… She said, and I quote, ” His love for Christ” and then continued with a few other things… through out the day and on MSN homepage…when the story is replayed they have edited the “Love of Christ” part out…

Why? Because using the word Christ might offend someone… well I am a Christian and I am offended! Offended that they would edit it out. Offended that we as Christians are asked to tread lightly so as not to offend someone of another religion.

I think anyone who missed the original broadcast this morning should know what NBC has done. This man loved his country and loved his God and gave his life for both, just as Christ gave His life for him…

Please feel free to copy this and forward it to everyone on your email list. There are emails that go around saying ” If you believe in God” then forward this… well I am starting one right here, right now…I am not ashamed of God but I am becoming more ashamed of my country …It is time to take a stand.

Please GOD, have mercy on us and help us all.

Step One: Does this post appeal at an emotional level?

If a post screams about hot button issues, the post may not have a primary goal of conveying facts. Its goal may be to manipulate you to do something. Like share it. Or spend a whole lot of time writing a long comment about it. (Maybe even a Medium article…)

Consider again the words in my Aunt Pricilla’s post: “I’m offended!,” “I’m a Christian!” “I am not ashamed of God,” “It’s time to take a stand!”

This post is filthy with emotional triggers. It is beyond a doubt designed to fire up a Christian reader. You find yourself reacting, not analyzing.

How does this post do when weighed for emotional triggers? It scores a red flag for Fake News.

Step Two: Does this post contain dates and times and actual names: facts you can check?

Take another look at my Aunt Pricilla’s post above. No dates, no times, no names.

Major red flag #2.

Just for a sec, let’s just pretend that the post does contain dates, times, names. My first move would be to go online and search for those dates, times and names and see what I turned up.

It’s not just a matter of the quantity of sites that say the same thing. It’s a matter of which sites are talking about the incident and how well they meet the 5 criteria for not-fake-news we’re talking about here. False news stories are 70% more likely to be retweeted than true ones, it seems. If websites are not fact-checking but just following Twitter in search of the next big conspiracy, and there are a lot of these, then you’re merely looking at a big pile of garbage instead of a small one.

Speaking of Fake News, this quote has also been attributed to Mark Twain and about four other people.

Step Three: Is it completely obvious who has been cast in the role of the villain?

In the article above, NBC and MSN definitely are playing the role of the nasty. If this were a real news article, it would include a quote from them sharing their point of view or at least some articulation on the other side of the story. But it doesn’t. NBC is our enemy and we must tar and feather and distrust this evil malefactor.

That’s red flag #3.

Step Four: Take a step back and think about it

NBC is a publicly traded company. Something like half this country identifies as Christian and I bet amongst the “still watching television” cohort, the percentage is a comfortable majority.

Given their audience, why the heck would leadership at NBC tell employees to definitely, in all cases, edit “Christ” out of heartfelt messages from the wives of Navy Seals who have died serving this country?

That’s what this post is implying: That NBC has taken a stand — NBC vs Christianity. The president of NBC has to answer to shareholders. How many of them would regard smacking down Christians as a sound business strategy?

But it almost doesn’t matter whether you agree with my above point or not. Here’s another “take a step back and think about it” to contemplate: How many times NBC broadcasts people talking about Christ that are clearly *not* edited.

You don’t have to look far. Watch sports interviews after the game, actors who won an award or any story involving death. Spoiler alert — If NBC is universally editing mentions of Christ, they’re doing a shit job of it.

Given all this, I don’t know how you’d argue that NBC has a policy in place to bodyslam Christians, so let’s assume they don’t. Also let’s hypothesize that this incident and my Aunt Pricilla’s post about this incident are entirely true.

If this post is true, but yet it’s not NBC’s policy to edit all mentions of Christ, then one individual employee made a bad judgement call that easily could have had more to do with making time for a commercial break or a finger that slipped on a button than any deliberate anti-christian promotional effort.

Does one employee’s possibly suboptimal decision or mistake deserve Facebook posts across the internet designed to whip up your aunts and uncles and family and friends? To get everyone all hysterical about NBC’s dastardly determination to destroy Christ?

Major red flag #4.

Step Five: What is the source of this information?

Umm, this article doesn’t even have a source.

Major red flag #5.

But let’s just pretend the post did have a source.

Look at this small cross-section of a much bigger chart — I’m not going to copy the whole thing here but you should definitely check it out. Take a gander at the publications you can see below. These are publications that fact-check what they put out there and have the smallest bias.

The publications closest to the top fact-check the best. The ones closest to the vertical middle are the least biased:

source: https://www.adfontesmedia.com/

Here’s a video about this chart: https://youtu.be/RL-CHyzgK1Q

Go here for the whole chart: https://www.adfontesmedia.com/

As Shawn Langlois says in his MarketWatch article, “If you look at this chart [the whole chart] and are convinced your “extreme” source belongs in the middle, you just might be part of the problem plaguing America today.”

Verdict on the NBC v Christianity Post: Fake News.

Another Fake News Case Study

Here’s an article someone shared recently on Facebook from Occupy Democrats. I’m posting this one too so no one gets the misapprehension that Christians have a monopoly on fake news. I’m also testing out my five steps to detect fake news on this example. Feel free to tag along with me on this process double-check.

Here’s the post:

A photograph of acting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney has set social media on fire with mockery and derision. Snapped by a keen-eyed photographer as Mulvaney returned from a surprise trip to Afghanistan with the President, the look of weary resignation on Mulvaney’s face soon became the fodder for a wave of jokes from Twitter users — along with his flag shirt and “Space Force” hat!

Mr. Mulvaney clearly did not have a good Thanksgiving with the President on his cynical and clearly performative effort to pretend he cares about our troops overseas — and his obvious distress hints at the chaos and tumult unfolding behind the scenes as the president grapples with the prospect of his all but certain impeachment.

Does this post appeal to you at an emotional level? Yes. You either love it and think it’s hilarious or you think it’s mean spirited and ludicous. There’s way more manipulative emotional content than actual boring facts.

Frankly, this article contains virtually no facts at all beyond that Mick Mulvaney walked out of a plane the other day. Major red flag #1.

Step Two: Does this post contain dates and times and actual names, facts you can check? Sort of. But also not really. There’s a whole lot of speculation around “pretending he cares about troops” and “weary resignation” that don’t exactly sound like check-able facts. Major red flag #2.

Step Three: Is it completely obvious who has been cast in the role of the villain? Yes. Double yes. Major red flag #3.

Step Four: Take a step back and think about it. The point of this article is to imply that everybody (how else does social media get set on fire) agrees that Mulvaney deserves mockery and derision and that the White House is a mess and everybody knows it. Or at least all the smart people know it.

Distilling this whole thing down to its very essence: Only idiots stand with this shlep.

Is that news?

Major red flag #4.

Step Five: What is the source of this information? Occupy Democrats is in the Red Box so far off to the left bottom corner of the News Bias Chart it barely makes it onto the grid.

Major red flag #5.

Verdict: This is fake news.

If you ask me, fake news takes a lot of different forms. There’s your basic and blatant lies. There are articles that whip up readers to mountain-level hysteria about molehill-level events.

In my definition, the fake news category also includes cherry-picking anecdotes that support a point of view and forgetting about the huge pile of actual empirical data that supports the contrary point of view.

Many articles deliberately deploy logical fallacies to serve personal agendas. There’s a lot of that going on, especially in the lower left and right of the media chart. It’s deliberate manipulation.

I believe patriotic Americans have a duty to protect our country from polarizing misinformation of any stripe. It’s all of our responsibility as Americans to fact check before we share anything. In this day and age, sharing lies is tantamount to lying, no matter how innocently perpetrated.

How can we all work together to help each other stay honest? It’s really hard these days.

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stacey richter

Stacey is host of the Relentless Health Value podcast and co-president of Aventria Health Group.