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Why riot? Community, choices, aspirations
Why riot? Community, choices, aspirations

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3.2 Separating opinions from facts

How do you know what information is a fact or just someone’s opinion, or even who is behind the information being posted, or messages that are targeting you and your friends? There are many ways that you can fact check information and claims.

A screenshot of a tweet from former US president Donald Trump, 26 May 26 2020
Figure 10: Tweet from former US president Donald Trump, 26 May 26 2020

This tweet was posted by former US president Donald Trump on 26 May 2020 and flagged as requiring fact checking by Twitter.

There are lots of polarising issues that become the focus of offline and online debate, conspiracy theories and misinformation campaigns, from highly contested elections to Brexit, climate change and Covid. These are issues that you may be discussing amongst your friends and making decisions about personally or within your community, or that your politicians are making decisions about through national and international policies.

Let’s take the example of this tweet from Donald Trump. There are a few simple ways to check information online and on social media. Think: before you act take a moment to stop and think, is this information correct/real? You can use online searches to look for information around the issue and check facts using websites like Fullfact.org [Tip: hold Ctrl and click a link to open it in a new tab. (Hide tip)] .

Take a look at Figure 11 and ask yourself 5 simple questions: who, what, where, when and why.

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Figure 11 (interactive): TIPS: The Trustworthy information check list
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Now have a go at Activity 7.

Activity 7: Fact-checking Trump

Timing: 20 minutes

Try your skills with former President Donald Trump’s tweet from 26 May 2020.

You can do this on your own or with friends. Take a few minutes to do some online research around the story. Think about the 5 questions as you do to help with your research. Fill in the table below. At the end of this process ask yourself what is your judgement on this tweet? Was it opinion or fact? Is it something people should believe and react to? If you were a Trump supporter how would it have made you feel?

Table 1: Fact-checking Trump
There is NO WAY (ZERO!) that Mail-In Ballots will be anything less than substantially fraudulent. Mail boxes will be robbed, ballots will be forged & even illegally printed out & fraudulently signed. The Governor of California is sending Ballots to millions of people, anyone...— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump)
Who - Source
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What – The facts
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Where
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When
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Why / how does it make you feel.
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Words: 0
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Discussion

Table 1: Fact-checking Trump (Discussion)
There is NO WAY (ZERO!) that Mail-In Ballots will be anything less than substantially fraudulent. Mail boxes will be robbed, ballots will be forged & even illegally printed out & fraudulently signed. The Governor of California is sending Ballots to millions of people, anyone...— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump)
Who - Source This comes from Donald Trump’s personal account.
What – The facts While Trump makes claims about voter fraud, there is no factual evidence in this statement to back it up. For example no links to external or independent and verifiable sources that confirm what he is saying. The claim that the Governor of California is sending ballots to millions of people has no context. Such as whether this is normal practice i.e people can choose to register for postal votes.
Where This was posted on Twitter. At the time this message had over 130 thousands likes and 38,000 retweets.
When It was posted on the 26 May 2020. There was a presidential election taking place in the US in 2020. Trump was standing for the Republican party and Biden for the Democratic party. A search of news reports highlighted that more potential democratic voters were registering to vote using postal votes than republican.
Why / how does it make you feel. The language is quite emotive. He used words like fraudulent, robbed, illegally signed …

Remember, how information makes you feel can be one of the most important factors in any decision you make, but if you use your head and not your heart, you will be in control of the decisions you make and not just following the herd. Why not try using these skills to fact checking stories you have come across on social media in your own life.