Recognizing Facts, Fiction, and Conspiracy Theory
By: Mark J Flowers
Tags: Social Media, Conspiracy Theories, News, Conspiracy, Fake News

There is a lot of information available to people in the 21st century, and it can be difficult to sift through and evaluate which of that information is valid. Experts can be overturned, people misunderstand education as being opinion instead of fact thus they assign it a label meant to discredit facts, and widely spread videos, stories, or memes can seem trustworthy when they are not. Conspiracy theory is even more sinister, mixing some truth with otherwise unverifiable information. So, I want to give you some pointers about how best to judge credibility for that which you are seeing widely spread by your friends can family, often on social media:

First, if it feels a little off then it likely is. Your ‘spidey sense’ is a pretty good first indicator that you should look deeper. If you find yourself struggling to accept information given to you, but you can’t directly refute it, it often means you should dig deeper.

Second, just because it is widely spread or a trusted friend shared it does not mean it is reputable. Often times information can seem credible and without confirming its accuracy people will share it. Sometimes, even against their own ‘spidey sense’.

Make sure you are following CCCRAVEN.

Is the information CONSISTENT with what you know and other related information?

Is the information able to be CORROBERATED with reputable and trustworthy sources? If not, it likely is not true.

Is the information from a REPUTABLE source? This doesn’t mean your friend or family member, it means the originator of the information.

Are you ABLE to see or witness how the information was gathered? If someone claims it occurred behind closed doors in a faraway land, then you can be confident it is likely not credible information.

Does the originator of the information have a VESTED INTEREST in sharing? Will they gain followers, make money, or otherwise benefit? If so, there is a possibility they are not a credible resource.

Does the person have EXPERTISE and KNOWLEDGE? Degrees are helpful signals, but are they also employed by the government, a university, or widely published and peer reviewed? If not, there is a good chance they are commentating on something, potentially over simplifying it, and you may not be getting the full picture. (Consider this class, I bet you didn’t consider all the depths we’ve visited even here, and this is only scratching the surface. So imagine how much a TV commentator could be under-analysing)

Has the originator proven themselves to be a NEUTRAL resource? If not, if you know them to be biased, then consider that bias in your own analysis of credibility for what they are saying.

Dissect the arguments made by asking why, what are the reasons they used to support it, asking/considering if there are counter arguments, what evidence did they provide which can be verified, and what conclusions did they draw?

Evaluate the evidence based on all of the above. Were the reasons convincing and sufficient to logically lead to the conclusions drawn?

If you were asked to refute what they are claiming, how would you attack their claims? Use that to dig deeper, try to see if you can debunk what they said by using the same tools. However, be careful not to fall into using less than reputable information yourself.

Here is a starter to help. As a first rule of thumb, I stick with the green box:

Source: https://www.adfontesmedia.com/