About this guide
The Luria Library at Santa Barbara City College has graciously shared this guide with Phoenix College. It provides information about inaccurate, misleading, and satirical “news” sites, as well as links to reliable sources of news, and tools for evaluating the information you find online. Content in this guide was also taken directly from Mike Caufield's open source book, Web Literacy for Student Fact-Checkers
Use the tabs above to navigate through the pages of this guide.
Image from the Snopes' Field Guide to Fake News Sites and Hoax Purveyors
How does fake news spread to influence millions of readers? Read this New York Times case study.
SOURCE: Austin LibGuide
Some have used the concept of fake news to dismiss or discredit news stories and facts that disagree with their own opinions on the issue, or with their general world view. News does NOT become fake simply because it challenges your own beliefs or ideas, or even because it conflicts with something else that you read on the topic. Often times, there is good evidence and valid viewpoints on both sides of an issue, and so articles that highlight the evidence on one side or the other does not necessarily fit any criteria as "fake news."
It is easy to assume something is true when it confirms beliefs and opinions that you already hold. This is known as "confirmation bias." To avoid the trap of confirmation bias, it is crucial to pull information from a variety of sources and to evaluate the information in those sources objectively.
A filter bubble or echo chamber is the result of website algorithms designed to determine which content you want to see and which you don’t, based on your past behavior and other information about you. Over time, the web content you see represents an increasingly narrow range of information and ideas, and you are exposed to fewer and fewer experiences, ideologies, and perspectives that differ from yours.
To get out of your own filter bubble, try using these strategies: