how do you fact check stuff?

what do can I do to fact check stuff myself?

hi, good question!

A Quick Guide To Fact Checking

Finding information:

How I go about fact checking varies slightly depending on what I'm fact checking. If the post has provided a source, I usually start by assessing the credibility of the source; if there's no source, I might start by doing a preliminary search using a search engine (I use DuckDuckGo).

If the topic is a popular one, it might be worth checking whether it's already been fact checked. Check out Snopes, Reuters Fact Check, FactCheck.org or Politifact.

If it's a complex topic, it is sometimes worth checking out Wikipedia, not to use as a source, but to get some general background on the topic. Fact checking is harder when you don't have context. I then do a more specific search, and start reading a few articles from reputable sources.

There are certain subjects that I sometime used a different approach for. For example, if it's a medical topic, I might start by searching PubMed.

A good resource to check the reliability of media sources is Media Bias/Fact Check. You can type in your source, and they will rate their political bias and score their factual reporting.

You can find more tools that help fight disinformation here.

I would also recommend checking out @rovermcfly 's Media Literacy Masterpost.

Former President Donald Trump made false and questionable claims in a brief press conference on Jan. 11 after the closing arguments in a New York civil fraud trial. The lawsuit, filed by New York Attorney General Letitia James, alleges that Trump repeatedly inflated the value of his assets to bilk banks and insurance companies.

Trump claimed lawyers for the state attorney general’s office “don’t have any evidence against us.” The judge has ruled there is “indisputable documentary evidence” that Trump filed false financial statements, but said there “doesn’t have to be evidence of harm to a third person.”

Trump said his former personal attorney Michael Cohen “took back everything he said in court” leaving the state with no case against him. Cohen testified that Trump never specifically told him to inflate asset values, but he said Trump “speaks like a mob boss” and “tells you what he wants without specifically telling you.”

The former president claimed that he had “won this case already” in an appeals court. He has not. The appeals court has allowed the case to proceed.

Trump accused President Joe Biden of setting up “every one” of his civil and criminal cases — a claim that is not backed by evidence.

He also claimed without support that the New York attorney general’s visits to the White House in 2022 and 2023 were part of “a conspiracy” against Trump.

Americans have less confidence in vaccines to address a variety of illnesses than they did just a year or two ago, and more people accept misinformation about vaccines and Covid-19, according to the latest health survey from the Annenberg Public Policy Center (APPC) of the University of Pennsylvania.

The survey conducted October 5-12, 2023, with a panel of over 1,500 U.S. adults, finds that the number of Americans who think vaccines approved for use in the United States are safe dropped to 71% from 77% in April 2021. The percentage of adults who don’t think vaccines approved in the U.S. are safe grew to 16% from 9% over that same two-and-a-half-year period.

Despite concerted efforts by news organizations, public health officials, scientists, and fact-checkers (including APPC’s project FactCheck.org) to counter viral misinformation about vaccination and Covid-19, the survey finds that some false or unproven claims about them are more widely accepted today than two to three years ago. Although the proportion of the American public that holds these beliefs is, in some cases, still relatively small, the survey finds growth in misinformation acceptance across many questions touching on vaccination.

"Despite" concerted efforts, yeah, sure.

BREAKING: Ukrainian prosecutor general Andriy Kostin has launched a CRIMINAL investigation of Mitt Romney, Nancy Pelosi and John Kerry for a money laundering scheme involving their respective sons' alleged illegal business dealings with energy companies in the known corrupt country. The parents have been implicated in their sons' respective criminal probes that stemmed from the impeachment inquiry of Joe Biden. This comes at a time when Romney has announced he is not seeking re-election to the US Senate and Pelosi has bowed out from leadership of the House Democrats. All logic points to Pelosi, Romney and Kerry knowing this was on the radar. Will the US Justice Department accept a criminal referral and take on the investigation? Under Merrick Garland, don't hold your breath... But we have an election coming up next November. Justice is coming.

Nancy Pelosi, John Kerry and Mitt Romney do not have sons on boards of energy companies doing business in Ukraine, much less being investigated. Claims otherwise have been debunked repeatedly since 2019. reuters.com/news/picture/f… politifact.com/factchecks/202… factcheck.org/2019/10/dubiou…

The frauds at "Factcheck.org" recently "fact-checked" TFTP's own, Jason Bassler after he made a post sharing information that recently surfaced during the Fluoride hearings. Journalist Derrick Broze explains what they get wrong.

Read More: https://thefreethoughtproject.com/fake-news/fact-checking-the-fact-checkers-experts-say-fluoridated-water-not-safe-to-drink

#TheFreeThoughtProject #TFTP

I know that Trump spewing bullshit is not exactly news. But since he's now responsible for blocking border reform through his Congressional minions, his hypocritical and blatantly dishonest rantings on Thursday need to be examined.

Some of his words were too conspiratorially vague to definitively fact-check. For example, Trump spoke of migrants as “entire columns of fighting-age men” and said “they look like warriors to me; something’s going on, and it’s bad” – winking at a baseless narrative about foreign adversaries using migration to surreptitiously assemble some sort of enemy force in the US. He said he thinks unnamed people are allowing migrants into the country because “they’re looking for votes,” faintly echoing his previous false claim about migrants being signed up to vote in the 2024 election – and declining to explain that non-citizens cannot vote in federal, state and almost all local elections (though some migrants might potentially receive citizenship years down the road). Trump also spoke of the US being “overrun” by a “new form” of crime he called “Biden migrant crime.” He made that claim though early data suggests that in 2023 the US was at or around its lowest violent crime rate in more than 50 years amid a sharp decline in homicides; though there were cases of undocumented people committing crimes during his own presidency; and though, despite some recent cases in which undocumented people are accused of serious offenses, research has found no connection between immigration and crime - and sometimes that immigrants commit crimes at lower rates than people born in the US.

But wait, there's more!

Facts First: There is no evidence for Trump’s claim that jails “throughout the world” are being emptied out so that prisoners can travel to the US as migrants, nor for his claim that foreign leaders are also emptying out mental health facilities for this purpose. Last year, Trump’s campaign was unable to provide any evidence for his narrower claim at the time that South American countries in particular were emptying their mental health facilities to somehow dump patients upon the US. Representatives for two anti-immigration organizations told CNN at the time they had not heard of anything that would corroborate Trump’s story, as did three experts at organizations favorable toward immigration. CNN’s own search did not produce any evidence. The website FactCheck.org also found nothing.

People from other countries may be wondering whether somebody let Trump out of an asylum for narcissistic prevaricators in the US.

The bottom line is that Trump is blocking border reform just so he can hold photo-ops and rant incoherently about migrants until Election Day. Because of this, we can now accurately call it the Trump border crisis.

Yep, whenever writing about this situation (Tumblr or elsewhere), use the hashtag: #Trump Border Crisis

How to check if a source is credible. Misinformation is straight up killing people

via reddit: What’s some basic knowledge that a scary amount of people don’t know?

EDIT: How to actually check if a source is credible:

- Identify the author and check their credentials. Also, see who their employer is, and consider how it might impact their biases.

- Compare headlines to the actual content of the article. Is it intentionally misleading to provoke an emotional response? Think about whether it's done to intentionally misdirect people.

- Check the date the article was published. When it was released could change if the information is outdated.

- Fact check the story by using websites like FactCheck.org.

- Dig deep to see if the news article cites sources and traceable quotes.

- Check if the URL has any misspellings or odd use of language.

Important things to remember:

Always consult multiple sources - Social media is NOT a reliable source (looking at you, Facebook)

- Be open minded and fight against confirmation bias.

- Avoid predictive searching so you don't get trapped in an echo chamber.

—

P.s. I save quite a few things from Twitter. When I do, I look who posted it, what their credentials are, if that's corroborated elsewhere, who else endorses them, etc. (Usually it's from researchers whose work I already knew from years back.) That doesn't mean they or the info is certainly infallible; it's just due diligence, to the extent I can.

If something is incorrect, I want to know. But likewise I'm skeptical depending who says so, what their credentials and sources are, and always: cui bono?

I find it stupid how celebrities will only use their influence to prioritize themselves instead of speaking out about what actually matters.

Taylor Swift has the status of a billionaire, she's been popular for years, and she uses that status only for her benefit.

"But she shouldn't have to speak about it it's her choice, besides, better to be silent than misinformed-"

bro just TALKING about the ethnic cleansing in palestine is the bare minimum. it also takes only a couple of minutes to educate yourself about the history that led to where we are now.

She also hasn't talked about her name being used for z**nists defending the IDF, that's how little she cares.

"But what about that comedy show she went to with Selena Gomez to raise money for charities donating to palestine-"

Once again, bare minimum. Notice how I mentioned she has billionaire status? It wouldn't be that hard for her to LITERALLY GIVE AWAY money for that.

She still has her movie playing in Israel.

Even as people give away misinformation, saying they aren't being shown:

(source from factcheck.org)

Not a word about Israel murdering, bombing, terrorizing Palestinian civilians while Israelis chant "Death to Arabs."

Stop thinking that capitalist billionaires are ever going to give a shit. They don't. Stop defending Taylor Swift. I'm sick of it.

The bill calls for $14.3 billion in spending to respond to the attacks in Israel and proposes “budgetary offsets” by rescinding the same amount of funding to the Internal Revenue Service. That’s not an “offset,” multiple budget experts say. Reducing the IRS’ ability to collect taxes that are owed would lower revenues and therefore increase deficits.

Maya MacGuineas, president of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, said in a statement about the bill that “paying for new spending by defunding tax enforcement is worse than not paying for it at all. Instead of costing $14 billion, the House bill will add upward of $30 billion to the debt. Instead of avoiding new borrowing, this plan doubles down on it.”

Another false claim by republiKKKans.

Folks, there's a lot of dis- and misinformation out there. Here's a good place to help you figure out what's what:

FactCheck.org

“There is evidence of mass rape so brutal that they broke their victims’ pelvis – women, grandmothers, children.”

“People whose heads have been cut off. Women standing in their night dresses woken up and shot. Faces blasted off. Heads smashed and their brains spilling out,” she said. “A baby was cut out of a pregnant woman and beheaded and then the mother was beheaded.”

The Hamas terrorists were barbaric to begin with, but many of them also reportedly took a drug called Captagon, an amphetamine produced in southern Europe and the Middle East that has helped fuel terrorism. It is commonly referred to as the “ISIS drug.” Small bags of cocaine were also found in vehicles that the terrorists used to drive from Gaza to Israel.

Colonel Rabbi Haim Weisberg said that what Israeli forces have discovered in the aftermath of the attacks was “evidence of torture and savagery.”

“We have babies with their heads cut off. Bodies without hands, without legs, without genitals,” he added.

https://www.dailywire.com/news/israeli-official-hamas-raped-women-grandmothers-children-so-violently-they-broke-victims-pelvis

nice propaganda piece. you always know it’ll be reliable and totally verified when it starts with “barbaric evils that innocent Israeli citizens were forced to experience at the hands of savage Palestinian Islamic terrorists”. ben shapiro the right-wing zionist isn’t exactly the person i’d turn to for my news but that might just be me.

so the real news is: dozens of beheaded babies remains an unverified claim with no proof provided. mass rapes remain to be unverified claims with no proof provided. the latter can very much be true as rape has always been done by men in war, but again, we can only speculate instead. that is, unless we use propaganda pieces which serve to justify the “barbaric evils” and “savage” acts of israel towards gaza.