I come across misleading information from friends and family all the time. Whether it’s through texts, tweets, links, videos, podcasts or any other form of media, I’ve seen it, and it’s ugly. But it doesn’t have to be ugly. Well, it can be less ugly than it currently is. There are always going to be trolls online dying to send misinformation out to the masses, but if we can protect those whose opinions and information we value most, we can surround ourselves with a trustworthy network of sources.

We have to start with the importance of fighting misinformation. As this week’s reading from the Columbia Journalism Review, misinformation leads to extremism. I’ve always believed that the smartest people are able to look at something with a level head and make a decision that falls somewhere between both extreme sides of any argument. There are plenty more than 50 shades of gray in this world, which sure seems to eliminate the idea that most issues are black and white or right and wrong.

I’ve also always believed that the best way to encourage friends and family to come around to certain ideas is to have meaningful discourse. There are people out there who refuse to change their minds, and though I don’t want to look at the situation with a defeatist attitude, we might never be able to change those people. In my opinion, that’s okay. In fact, I don’t think we should waste our energy on those people at all, which is step one. Professor Gillmor even said in the Module 5 videos that the best answer for trolls is blocking them and ignoring them.

The same smartest people I referred to in the first paragraph are the exact type of people we should be engaging. They’re the people with open minds and lists like Professor Gillmor’s list of truths to be questioned. I think the best approach is to simply explain to them how important the truth is. We need to explain, without attacking, that being certain is absolutely vital. Obviously we should cite reports contradictory to whatever they’ve shared, and we need to share with them readings like Mediactive. We also need to show them the value of proving with facts, like in this documentary about climate change. Our goal is to show others the value of truth and the harm of falsity, and rational discourse is our best path.

In this digital age, it is impossible to scroll throughout your phone and not come across fake news. Unfortunately, it’s just the way it is. As someone who has grown up always having and using technology, I am pretty alert when it comes to spotting fake news articles or posts that aren’t true, sadly my grandparents are not.

Personally, I hate confronting people about such things, whether its wrong facts, a made up headline, or incorrect news, I do my best to just scroll along and ignore it. If you’re an introvert you probably get how I feel. But it is always important to know when to draw the line on fake news. Both of my grandparents are avid Facebook users and it is common for them to share stories and pictures with me, regardless of whether or not its true. Most commonly incorrect information I’m sent is regarding celebrity deaths or more recently the coronavirus. I’ve seen everyone from Taylor Swift to Skai Jackson ‘die’. Luckily there are many ways to combat this and alert your loved ones that they have fallen for fake news.

Whether you’re talking to your family, your friends, or even a stranger online, it is important to engage with the person and not specifically the content. Lately, I have been seeing a lot of political activity in my news feed, whether its accurate or not its important to identify your relationship with the user and not article or story at hand. Specifically correcting an article can come across as  you disagreeing with their opinion rather than trying to help them. Further, address the situation in private, whether they agree or not, you don’t want to seem as if you’re challenging them on a public site. Often it is difficult to change someones mind regarding a topic they are passionate about (and further shared stories about), so you should always expect some sort of retaliation. Offering helpful tips in order to help spot fake articles can be a life savor even if they continue to post fake news (at least you’ll know). Showcase and educate those on how to spot a fake news and always be polite about it.

You can’t save everyone from the depths of fake news, but better education on the subject can really help. Fake news is harmful to both readers and users of social media, sometimes filling people with fear and doubt. Look out for your friends and family, after all the internet is a big scary place!

My recent “grandmother problem” post had some techniques to create a safe space to address the misinformation spread on social media. I elected to use it on my Uncle Keith. While not yet over 65 he is in his late 50s. He is also a former reporter for his local newspaper in Las Cruces, New Mexico.  When he shares questionable content I am always surprised and disappointed because I expect more.  He is a smart die hard liberal so I figure my chances are way better  when compared with the conservative folks I know who spread misinformation.

So how did it go?

While he was kind and able to speak to his posts, he was not overly persuaded. He felt the content was not questionable. In his words, ” Trump lies every minute of every day so if I share a few that are against him that fells fair.”

I believe that he took note of what we talked about. Only time will tell if he is truly past a point of no return or if he will be more thoughtful in his posts.

Everyone has at least one person, a relative or perhaps a friend that shares information that is questionable to say the least. Do you mute them or worse yet, unfollow them all together?  This can be hard because they are a family member or friend. There was a reason you followed them to begin with and you don’t want to create an issue. Don’t fear there is a name from this issue,  it’s been called the “the grandma problem”.  If left alone,  it can lead to some pretty serious consequences.

The 2016 Election

Yes, this again because its important to understand how the “grandma problem” impacted the spread of fake news. In a study conducted by New York University and Princeton University it was shown that people over the age of 65 overwhelmingly shared the bulk of misinformation between April 2016 through November 2016.

Hey but aren’t Russian bots to blame.

Nope, turns out that humans are just as likely to spread misinformation as bots on social media according to MIT.  The report also stated that bots just added to the number of retweets but did not increase the number of lies being spread. This means grandma is still a huge problem on social media and must be helped or else we could be doomed for a repeat in 2020.

Yeah I know it’s a problem but…

what can we do?  It can be difficult so looking to experts is a good way to navigate. Claire Wardle is the head of the nonprofit First Draft. There goal is to  investigate misinformation. In a recent article she offers the following tips:

• Create a safe space by using pronouns like us and we to make them feel like it can happen to anyone.
• Ask them to verify the information bu looking at the source and if the information can be corroborated by other sources.
• There is a series of ten  videos from Stanford History Education Group that dives into how to navigate all the misinformation available online.
• Remember attacking on a sensitive political issue is the same as attacking their identity so tread carefully and do not muddy the waters by adding a dissenting opinion. Focus on the misinformation.

 

Warning: Undefined array key "file" in /home/kristyro/public_html/wp-includes/media.php on line 1749

Warning: Undefined array key "file" in /home/kristyro/public_html/wp-includes/media.php on line 1749

In keeping with the topic of my blog for this class, I chose to edit the Forever 21 wiki page. Forever 21 is infamous for fast fashion so I thought it would be perfect to chose not only for that but also because it did seem like it was missing some important information. I usually am not one to make corrections or really speak out on mistakes using a platform like Wikipedia so I definitely stepped out of my comfort zone with this assignment.

I did find that using the Wikipedia Education Training, I felt more confident it making a change. I was able to essentially try out all of the sections of making an edit prior to actually making the change on a real page. One thing I loved about the training was how organized it was. It really walked you through each step in this process and showed you how to use all of the necessary tools to make edits. This helped to make the very daunting task of making a change a little less scary. I also loved that we basically got to start the assignment in the training session in the sense that we chose are articles and starting thinking about what to say about them.

After doing more research on Forever 21’s bankruptcy outside of the training session, I found out that they are currently in court to be sold for $81 million dollars to 3 different companies, something that is not up to date in the “Downfall Section” of the wiki page. Before making the changes to the page, I did check out the Talk page to see what was being discussed. I found that it seemed like there really was not anything being talked about but I did post my suggested edit to see if anyone would respond or have any other insight to add. In this image here, you can see my comment at the bottom of the page. I did update the date accessed because for some reason I wrote 2010 and not 2020 so the red portion went away.

After waiting about 2 days, I did not receive any type of feedback on my suggested edit. I  decided to take this as an okay to make the change and so I did. From first looking at the talk page, it didn’t seem like anyone really used the talk page for this topic so I felt that I was okay to go ahead I checked my spelling and grammar about a million times before I actually hit publish changes. I will not lie, I was pretty nervous as I typed out my edit because I just was worried I would break wikipedia or something like that. In this image below you can see my edit that I wrote and then cited at the very bottom of this section.  I found it to be so important to add because if someone were writing an article or a paper on the downfall of Forever 21, they should have an updated timeline of what is going on with the brand.

Even after having my edit on the page for a few days, there did not seem to be any feedback from it. I guess that either I did a good job or no one really cared to look.  I think it is pretty cool that if you go to the Forever 21 page, you will see my edit and my work. All of the things that I learned from the training that we did helped me to be able to make my edit and format it properly. Without the training, I would definitely have been lost and even more worried then I already was about making this change on the page.

Although I was very nervous stepping out of my comfort zone to do something like this, I see how important it is to have the power to make changes and to correct things that might not be accurate. Websites like Wikipedia are so important because of how much information they provide. Wikipedia provides access to information for all people as long as they have a device that is able to get on the internet. Knowledge is power and site like Wikipedia gives that power to everyone.

I am really glad that this was an assignment for this class because I feel like everyone might have a fact or some information that could be really useful to Wikipedia. I know that I was so nervous about making the change but I just added a small fact. I thought to myself, imagine there was some sort of false information that needed to be changed, I shouldn’t be so nervous to correct that. With Wikipedia being a source of information for everyone, I would hope that it only could provide factual things. I really enjoyed this assignment even though it was definitely very out of my comfort zone!

After taking a deep dive into media literacy, I know the importance of thinking be you share something. Although I have this great knowledge on how things might not be always as they seem online, others may not but it most definitely is my job to tell them the importance of sharing only real news.

There are different types of social media users. There are the lurkers who just check in but never post, the people who share and are active, and then there are the over sharers. These are often the people who do need a little extra help in the media literacy department. I find that these are the friends or followers who tend to just share whatever they agree with regardless of what is true.

To help guide them, I find it important to sit them down and make sure they realize what it means to spread fake news. Because of the world we live in today, more and more people are using social media platforms to get their news. Whether this is a good idea or not, we’ll never know but it is only worsened by having people share fake news.

With that in mind, I think everyone should read the article “The More We See Fake News, The Less Fake It Becomes” by Forbes. Just the title alone says it all. The more we give fake news stories the ability to be see, the more people will start to believe it. I love this article because it discusses exactly why I feel fake news can turn into real news. People are more likely to believe something when they’ve seen it over and over again and so if you share a fake news story and then your friend shares it too, someone that follows you might believe it and make it “fact” in their mind.

To the over sharers on Facebook, I would share this article with them. I think a lot of these people who may share fake stories do it unintentionally but if they do it intentionally, I think through education they may change their mind. I do not think anyone wants to have fake news stories become facts because of them so simply sharing an article like this with statistics that back up my beliefs may help the person who shares these stories to realize the damage they can create with just a simple share.

Warning: Undefined array key "file" in /home/kristyro/public_html/wp-includes/media.php on line 1749

Warning: Undefined array key "file" in /home/kristyro/public_html/wp-includes/media.php on line 1749

Warning: Undefined array key "file" in /home/kristyro/public_html/wp-includes/media.php on line 1749

We have all used Wikipedia before.  Growing up I was always told that Wikipedia shouldn’t be trusted because anyone could make changes to the pages.  I did not know just how strict Wikipedia made its process for creating edits to articles.

Wikipedia’s online training courses were very helpful in learning how to edit their articles and have your edits kept.  Before posting, I went through the final edit checklist.  This helped me make sure my edits were perfect.

I chose to attempt to make an addition to the Coolidge High School Wikipedia page. I lived in Coolidge for almost 10 years, while attending Coolidge High School for all four years of high school.  I have a lot of knowledge about the school because of how small it was and the extracurriculars I did while attending.  I found out this page had basically no information on it.  It even stated, “This article needs additional citations for verification.”

The first thing I did was go to the Coolidge High School’s talk page to add my suggested improvements to the page. I have attached a screenshot below with my improvements.  However, there hasn’t been anyone else in the talk stream so after not hearing back for a day, I went ahead and added my improvements to the page.

The Coolidge High School Wikipedia page was pretty empty before my edits.  I had added to and fixed the info box located on the righthand side, added a sentence about how the middle school now shares the campus and a section about the sports at CHS. Below is a before and after with my edits outlined in red.

Overall, I thought it was a pretty successful edit.  It is still up so I hope it stays up and doesn’t get reverted because I did correctly cite all the information I added.  With my improvements, I decided it would be smart to look at other more popular high school pages to see how they were set up before starting my edits.

One thing I did not like was how hard it was to post an image on the page.  I tried to post a picture of the Coolidge mascot and because of how strict the guidelines are I was not able to.  That was basically the only complaint I have about editing the page.

I enjoyed editing a Wikipedia page which lead me to wonder why so few women are Wikipedia editors.  I read an article, which was a bit old (2008) which stated only 13% of Wikipedia editors are female.  It was a really interesting read and suggest everyone give it a look.

Wikipedia is one of the greatest knowledge bases available to anyone with Internet connection. It is a resource I use multiple times a week, if not daily. Needless to say, when I found out I was going to be contributing to a Wikipedia article at the beginning of the semester I was a little intimidated. My only previous experience with editing a Wikipedia page was one time in high school when I edited a page with some friends of mine in high school for a musician we like. The information was true, but far from credible or relevant to the article. Fortunately, the avid Wikipedia editing community removed our edits. Contributing to Wikipedia felt like a way to redeem myself from my past blunder.

Through following the modules on the Wiki Ed site, the process was manageable. With help from the site, I decided to edit the page for Buzzfeed. The company is important in discussions about contemporary media, particularly when discussing native advertising. I would also be lying if I didn’t admit that looking at the occasional listicle is a guilty pleasure of mine. When I looked at the talk page, there was not a lot there. There were a few comments arguing that Buzzfeed should be labelled as far-left news and fake news, but I knew those would be hard to prove and leaned more towards opinion than fact. One comment also called the sources into question. I took a look at the sources and agreed with the commenter. Many of the sources were from blogs or were over five years old, meaning that much of the information needed to be updated.

While I would have loved to overhaul the sources for the article, I knew I did not have the time because of the expansive list of sources. I began work in my sandbox, instead, on information about Benny Johnson, as I was somewhat familiar with what happened. Shalor, the Wikipedia expert helping me, instead suggested that I work on the Funding subsection in the History section as Benny Johnson had been sufficiently covered. I was embarrassed that I missed the obvious banner above the section calling for updates. The information was sparse and seemed to be added bit by bit, so it did not flow.

I left a comment on the talk page describing my plans and began working on the article in my sandbox in the meantime.

After waiting a day or so, no one had responded so I decided to begin the process of moving information out of my sandbox. I tried to work only a sentence or two at a time so that it was easy to revert the changes if need be. In the end this is what the article looked like.

I am pleased to say that my edits were accepted and are still present on the Buzzfeed Wikipedia page at the time I am writing this. I added information, including information about 2008 investment and news from just a couple of months ago about Facebook funding two shows for it’s Watch platform, and reformatted the existing information to flow better as a narrative.

This successful attempt at editing has given me confidence to continue to edit. All that to say, though, I do not take editing Wikipedia lightly. It took me a long time edit the small section. My future edits will continue to be minor until I become experienced. I am cautious about editing as I do not want to inconvenience other users or risk posting misinformation. I now understand the countless hours of work that go into creating Wikipedia pages. The opportunity to learn how to edit an article has given me the tools to continue to learn how to be a valuable contributor to Wikipedia.