LETTERS: The Internet is a vital resource for users and companies all over the world.
Unfortunately, there are some who exploit and abuse it by spreading false information.
Here are some tips on how to verify information online:
CROSS-REFERENCE your news sources. With Google News, one can check whether something has been reported by reputable media.
If the news cannot be corroborated by another legitimate source, it is most probably false.
CHECK if an image is being used in the right context.
If you are on a computer, right click on a picture and select “Search Google for Image”.
This will look for the picture from an online database to check if the image has appeared online before, in what context and if it has been altered.
For example, an infrastructure project from one country could be wrongly portrayed as an achievement from another country ahead of an election to garner support for a sitting politician’s campaign.
LOOK closely at the URL. Some sites may look like reputable media, but are actually not.
They will use domain names similar to a reputable media, such as “cnn-channel.com”.
If you aren’t sure, go to your search engine and type the media name (like CNN).
The first link will be the right website. You can then search on that site for the news you were reading.
VERIFY a recent topic using the Fact Check Explorer (FCE).
Fact checking uses fact-based verification to determine what is true and what is not.
These checks are widely available online and FCE indexes them under one database.
If something sounds too good to be true, use FCE. It lets you browse and search for checks on specific topics or personalities.
SEARCH for article references. Fake stories have an attention-grabbing headline, but once you start reading, the information doesn’t add up.
If you can’t verify any information, such as people’s names or organisations that are quoted, chances are they are false.
ZEFFRI YUSOF
HEAD OF COMMUNICATIONS AND PUBLIC AFFAIRS, GOOGLE MALAYSIA
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect those of the New Straits Times