Hello, Readers! I have a fun one for you today: let’s talk about Fake News. This topic is tricky – politically speaking – so let’s just be real. We are currently in the middle of an election season, a global pandemic, and an unknown economy. It goes without saying that we all need accurate information. Here are some browser add-ins that will help rid your lives of false information.
NewsGuard – This is the most robust, which is why it’s membership-based. A team of journalists analyzes more than 2,000 news and information sites (sounds like fun) in the United States. Each site is evaluated and ranked on nine different criteria. Each criterion is given a certain weight – or a number of points – to determine the site’s overall rating. A site earns a green rating if it meets basic standards of accuracy and accountability. A site is dinged with a red rating if it fails to meet those minimum standards.
Official Media Bias/Fact Check Extension – Instead of grading news sites on a variety of different criteria, MBFC focuses on one factor: political bias. It also evaluates a site based on factual reporting, namely how accurate and reliable is the information and how proper are the sources for that information.
FakerFact– This is my personal favorite. It works a bit differently than the Fake News extensions above. Instead of analyzing entire websites, this extension looks at individual articles and stories. It uses an AI algorithm to check facts and analyze whether the article is opinion, satire, or journalism. So the next time you think “this can’t be real” you can hit the button and it will reveal itself.
There are other extensions to choose from, but these are the three I’ve tested out. I didn’t know this type of software was available, so when I discovered it, I thought it was extremely important. The misinformation game is toxic, and it’s important we receive accurate information.