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"The spread of online misinformation poses serious challenges to societies worldwide. In a novel attempt to address this issue, we designed a psychological intervention in the form of an online browser game. In the game, players take on the role of a fake news producer and learn to master six documented techniques commonly used in the production of misinformation: polarisation, invoking emotions, spreading conspiracy theories, trolling people online, deflecting blame, and impersonating fake accounts. The game draws on an inoculation metaphor, where preemptively exposing, warning, and familiarising people with the strategies used in the production of fake news helps confer cognitive immunity when exposed to real misinformation. We conducted a large-scale evaluation of the game with N = 15,000 participants in a pre-post gameplay design. We provide initial evidence that people's ability to spot and resist misinformation improves after gameplay, irrespective of education, age, political ideology, and cognitive style."

"The News Literacy Project is hosting a free webinar series Understanding Misinformation and How to Talk to People Who Believe It to foster more productive conversations free of misinformation among friends and family members and across generations - particularly during the holidays. The series is sponsored by the Fore River Foundation and is being offered in partnership with AARP's OATS/Senior Planet program. John Silva, NLP's senior director of professional learning, and Elizabeth Price, NLP's manager of professional learning, will lead the sessions. These free webinars will help participants understand what misinformation is, how people come to believe it and how to effectively and compassionately communicate and debunk those beliefs. While older adults play a critical role in sorting fact from fiction and helping others to do so, everyone can benefit from resources and support to help prevent harm from mis- and disinformation."

Twitter: The Fastest Way to Get Informed. Or Misinformed.

"When the results of today's U.S. midterm elections are tallied, people will have a clearer sense of how the American people really feel about the current administration. Or at least, how they feel based on the information they've read leading up to the election - not all of which was factual. Alas, it's not just the temperature of the U.S. political climate that will be gauged; so too will the impact and reach of online misinformation. All the major social networks have made attempts to clamp down on fake news, but the trickery has only grown more insidious and pervasive, with new derivatives of fake news, such as fake fact-checkers. Indeed, it would appear that just as we outsmarted fake news, those pushing misinformation have outsmarted our outsmarting."

"FEBRUARY 22, 2018 -From the instant replay that decides a game to the bodycam footage that clinches a conviction, people tend to trust video evidence as an arbiter of truth. But that faith could soon become quaint, as machine learning is enabling ordinary users to create fabricated videos of just about anyone doing just about anything. Earlier this month, the popular online forum Reddit shut down r/deepfakes, a subreddit discussion board devoted to using open-source machine-learning tools to insert famous faces into pornographic videos. Observers say this episode represents just one of the many ways that the this technology could fuel social problems, particularly in an age of political polarization. Combating the negative effects of fabricated video will require a shift among both news outlets and news consumers, say experts.  "Misinformation has been prevalent in our politics historically," says Brendan Nyhan, a political scientist at Dartmouth College in Hanover, N.H., who specializes in political misperceptions. "But it is true that technology can facilitate new forms of rumors and other kinds of misinformation and help them spread more rapidly than ever before." So-called fake news has been around long before Macedonian teenagers began enriching themselves by feeding false stories to social media users. In 1782, Benjamin Franklin printed a falsified supplement to the Boston Independent Chronicle maligning Seneca Indians in an attempt to influence public opinion during peace negotiations with Britain."

"Bad News is a website that offers simulations that show visitors how misinformation is spread through social media. Bad News is available in two versions. The regular version is intended for those who are high school age or older. Bad News Junior is appropriate for middle school and older elementary school students. The difference between the two versions is found in the news topics that are used in the simulations. "

"False content online has only multiplied over the years. But the fake news designation has also been used to serve all kinds of purposes-including, increasingly, to disparage real news reporters-so most experts now avoid the term. Instead, researchers usually talk about disinformation, which is purposefully false, and misinformation, which is unwittingly false (either because the publisher made a mistake or because the person sharing the content did). As false content spreads through social media networks, it can oscillate between the two, and it can manifest in various forms, including memes, tweets, or "imposter" content made to imitate real news stories. "

"How can we stop the spread of misleading, sometimes dangerous content while maintaining an internet with freedom of expression at its core? Misinformation expert Claire Wardle explores the new challenges of our polluted online environment and maps out a plan to transform the internet into a place of trust -- with the help everyday users. "Together, let's rebuild our information commons," she says."

"Have you noticed how bizarre social media and the news cycle has been lately? In the age of digital media, journalism is changing significantly. Widely available storytelling and distribution tools, misinformation spreading like wildfire, social media filter bubbles-headlines and stories are increasingly vying for attention, plastered across a smorgasbord of platforms. Can media get any stranger? Without a doubt. The videos we watch and podcasts we listen to may themselves soon be seamlessly manipulated, distorting the truth in new ways. Photoshop was just the beginning. Advanced media creation tools today are cheaper than ever, and innovative tech is accelerating the bleeding edge, further blurring the line between fantasy and reality. One of the latest developments was introduced last week at Adobe Max conference in San Diego. Engineered to make audio editing easier, Adobe's Project VoCo allows users to edit voices by rearranging words or saying phrases never actually recorded-all via typing. The software requires a minimum 20 minutes of recorded talking to do its magic. Then you can make an edited or brand new snippet of speech. In a text box below a visualization of the audio, you can copy/paste or type whatever you want. In a playful demo, Adobe presenter Zeyu Jin jokes around with comedian Jordan Peele by using the software to make him speak falsehoods. In short, this is the audio version of Photoshop-the ability to create something from nothing. A new generation of "sound-shopping," à la photoshopping, has been born."

"At its core, the rise of "fake news" is first and foremost a sign that we have failed as a society to teach our citizens how to think critically about data and information. Take that email from a Nigerian prince offering to transfer you ten million dollars if you'll just send him $10,000 to cover the wire costs. Enough people get that email each day and wire those ten thousand dollars that this scam continues in 2016. The Internet has globalized the art of the scam and the reach of misinformation, allowing a single tweet to go viral across the planet, sowing chaos in countries on the other side of the world from the person sending it. At the heart of all such news is the inability to think critically about the information that surrounds us and to perform the necessary due diligence and research to verify and validate. In April 2013 when the AP's Twitter account was hacked and tweeted that there had been an explosion at the White House that left President Obama injured, automated stock trading algorithms took the news as fact and immediately launched a cascade of trading activity that plunged the Dow Jones by more than 100 points in less than 120 seconds. Human reporters, on the other hand, simply picked up the phone and called colleagues stationed at the White House to inquire if they were aware of any such attack and were quick to refute the false information."

"Whether you call it "fake news", "misinformation" or the more innocuous "spin," and whether you see this as an entirely new problem or the continuation of an already existing problem (think "War of the Worlds," "Yellow Journalism" and "Dewey Defeats Truman"), one thing is clear: there is a powerful and pressing need to prepare our youth to make sense of the constant flow of media information that they consume everyday.  "

"I have the pleasure of working with educators who get to use iPads and iPod touches with students. Wherever I facilitate workshops, I find there are some myths floating around about Apple's iOS devices, and I'd like to clear up some of the misinformation."

"Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is effectively a set of 'complex disorders of brain development'. Most of us in education have dealt with students struggling with ASD and we know exactly what these students go through in their learning. But while ASD poses some learning challenges it should never be viewed as a crippling condition. Several ASD students, according to Autism Speaks, ' excel in visual skills, music, math and art'. As teachers, we need to work hard towards fighting the social stigma unfairly associated with ASD and the first place to start this fight is in classroom. There is a lot of misconception and misinformation surrounding ASD that should be unmasked to students.  To this end, we have curated for you a list of some great TED talks on autism you can watch with students in class.  You can also check these resources for apps and tools to use with autistic students."

"The word "deepfakes" refers to using deep learning, a type of machine learning, to add anyone's face and voice to video. It has been mostly found on the internet's dark corners, where some people have used it to insert ex-girlfriends and celebrities into pornography. But BuzzFeed provided a glimpse of a possible future in April when it created a video that supposedly showed Obama mocking Trump, but in reality, Obama's face was superimposed onto footage of Hollywood filmmaker Jordan Peele using deepfake technology. Deepfakes could pose a greater threat than the fake news and Photoshopped memes that littered the 2016 presidential election because they can be hard to spot and because people are -- for now -- inclined to believe that video is real. But it's not just about individual videos that will spread misinformation: it's also the possibility that videos like these will convince people that they simply can't trust anything they read, hear or see unless it supports the opinions they already hold. Experts say fake videos that will be all but impossible to identify as such are as little as 12 months away."

"It's no secret that students today spend a lot of time online, and that's why educators need to ensure that our students are equipped with digital citizenship and media literacy skills to help them navigate the terrain. Students need to know how to find reliable sources and spot misinformation. They need to know what information is appropriate - and inappropriate - to share. Often, educators try to instill this information via traditional instruction in a classroom. But when presented this way, it can fall flat. The key to helping students make good decisions online is to mentor them in their spaces and allow them to pursue their interests. This personalized learning approach, which addresses several of the ISTE Standards for Students, has real-world application that hooks our students and helps them internalize media literacy and digital citizenship skills. Here are five practical steps that educators can take to help graduate media literate digital citizens - those who learn, curate, collaborate and contribute thoughtfully to social media networks."

"Which brings me to news literacy and learners - how to distinguish what is real and what is fake? What is real information and what is misinformation?"

"With deliberate misinformation campaigns and the continued prevalence of fake news, fact-checking sites are now more important than ever. So in the digital era, where news travels quickly through multiple channels, how do you check your facts? Here are five of the best fact-checking websites, like Snopes and PolitiFact, so that you can find the truth."