Marjorie Taylor Greene, disinformation on Ukraine casualties and other news literacy lessons
The material in this submit comes from the Sift, the organization’s publication for educators, which has much more than 23,000 subscribers. Published weekly through the university yr, it explores timely examples of misinformation, addresses media and push liberty topics, discusses social media traits and issues, and contains dialogue prompts and activities for the classroom. Get Clever About Information, modeled on the Sift, is a no cost weekly newsletter for the general public.
The News Literacy Project’s browser-primarily based e-learning system, Checkology, allows educators instruct middle and large school pupils how to detect credible information and facts, seek out out trusted sources and know what to rely on, what to dismiss and what to debunk.
It also provides them an appreciation of the significance of the Initial Modification and a free of charge press. Checkology, and all of NLP’s assets and systems, are totally free. Because 2016, additional than 37,000 educators in all 50 states, the District of Columbia and more than 120 other countries have registered to use the system. Due to the fact August 2020, more than 3,000 educators and additional than 125,000 learners have actively applied Checkology.
Here’s material from the March 21 edition of the Sift:
1. Discussion about mis- and disinformation on the web has spiked over the previous two years, reflecting a heightened public recognition of the troubles presented by widespread falsehoods. According to data from the social media analysis business Zignal Labs, mentions of “misinformation” and “disinformation” on Twitter improved 221 p.c in 2020 in contrast with 2019 — mainly coinciding with the rise of community discussions about covid-19 and vaccines. Other key situations, together with the 2020 election and the Russian invasion of Ukraine, have sustained the public’s concentrate on the topic.
Dig further: Use this imagine sheet to have learners evaluate an report from this week’s Sift from a news literacy standpoint.
Sure: It is footage from the established of a 2020 rap songs movie in Moscow.
Of course: The clip was posted to TikTok on March 28, 2021, by Vasya Ivanov, who is also credited as the generation designer on the video clip.
NO: Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene didn’t refuse to applaud for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky when he spoke to Congress by using videoconference on March 16.
Of course: Greene clapped at four distinct points all through Zelensky’s visual appeal, as documented in this Twitter thread (archived right here) by CNN’s Daniel Dale.
NewsLit takeaway: Controversial figures are recurrent targets of misleading and untrue claims that resonate strongly between critics and partisan teams. The a lot more polarizing the particular person at the center of the rumor is, the far more inclined persons who oppose them may possibly be to uncritically accept and spread detrimental falsehoods. When a misleading visual — in particular a online video, which may possibly seem to be conclusive — is associated, it can touch off a wave of viral outrage. Remember: Our rational contemplating is easily bypassed when we’re very psychological. It is often ideal to pause in advance of you share or amplify information and facts, and this is in particular legitimate when the material provokes a sturdy psychological response.
- Brazil’s Supreme Courtroom banned the social media application Telegram — which is favored by Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro — as component of a nationwide crackdown on detest speech and misinformation.
- As Russia gets much more disconnected from the worldwide World wide web, fears of an rising “splinternet” — exactly where “we have a range of national or regional networks that don’t speak to a person another” — are mounting.
