Senwes Scenario Augustus / September 2017 | Page 54
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F UT UR E F OC U S
Who can we trust?
Stay savvy on-line!
JENNY MATHEWS
RECENTLY I URGED
READERS TO LEARN MORE
ABOUT TECHNOLOGY AS
A TOOL FOR BUSINESS,
BUT ALSO TO ENSURE
THE TOOLS DON’T END
UP RULING THEM! IT’S
INCREASINGLY CLEAR
THAT WE NEED TO BE
STREET SMART AND
SAVVY ABOUT THE
TWO-WAY STREAM OF
INFORMATION BETWEEN
OURSELVES AND SOCIAL
MEDIA. ON THE ONE
HAND WE NEED TO BE
WISE ABOUT WHAT WE
PUT ‘OUT THERE’ AND
ON THE OTHER WE NEED
TO BE CAREFUL ABOUT
WHAT INFORMATION
AND VISUALS WE ALLOW
INTO OUR BRAINS…
MOST IMPORTANTLY WE
NEED TO DOUBLE-CHECK
EVERYTHING WE READ
BEFORE WE BELIEVE!
52
FAKE NEWS
T
oday my WhatsApp was
flooded with a post “Please
tell all the contacts in your messenger
list not to accept Jayden K. Smit,
he’s a hacker… he’ll hack you!!!”
I immediately googled www.
snopes.com, the fact-checking
and Internet reference source for
urban legends, rumours, and mis-
information (try it sometime, it
helps). Hoax! I learned there have
been countless similar hoaxes:
‘Accepting a Facebook friend request
from a stranger will not provide
hackers with access to your computer
and online accounts’.
Another mischievous post on
Facebook claimed that Minister of
Basic Education Angie Motshegka
was warning children against too
much reading as it could cause
brain cancer. It is easy to read such
news and click ‘share’ and so you,
in ignorance, help perpetuate fake
news. The truth is Motshegka is
passionate about reading and has
launched a campaign called Read
to Lead. This should be a lesson
to us never to pass on information
we have not verified first.
Never before have we had so
much information at our finger-
tips and if this abundance is going
to help make us smarter and bet-
ter informed or more ignorant and
narrow-minded will depend on
ourselves. Neuroscientist Daniel J.
Levitin says, “What looks like (and
reads like) the truth may be riddled
AUG/SEP 2017 • SENWES Scenario
with lies if you look more closely.”
MISINFORMATION abounds
and has proliferated!
Common strategies used to hide
misinformation in plain sight are:
• Hide lies amongst some
truths - one effective technique
is to get a whole bunch of ver-
ifiable facts right and then add
one or two that are untrue.
• Website Masquerades - many
websites are false, use mislead-
ing names and pretend to be
something they are not. If a site
looks fishy to you, click around
until you see what entity owns
it. Do a Google search to see
who else links to that web page.
• Numbers are given without
any context – in this way
wrong impressions are easily
created. Pure sensationalism!
• Claims are made using false
sources - Unscrupulous writers
rely on most people not read-
ing footnotes or checking cita-
tions. When a product sounds
too good to be true, check
further.
MEDIA LITERACY
In a world where anybody can
launch any ‘news’ at any time we
must develop our own level of
media literacy to avoid being
easily ‘duped’. Improve your
on-line savvy by considering these
pointers on how to tell real news
from fake news from journalist