Lesson 4 Be Smart in the Digital World
Fake or Fact, That Is the Question
British writer Oobah Butler wanted to experiment ____ how easily one can manipulate public opinion online.
He created a fake ____ called The Shed at Dulwich.
Butler ____ up an account for his “restaurant” on a popular online review site.
He did not provide an exact ____ and wrote it was reservations only.
He did this to make ____ think The Shed was a special restaurant.
He faked photos of The Shed’s food with shaving cream, whitening tablets, and even his ____ foot.
He ____ asked his friends to write favorable fake reviews on the review site.
Things quickly got
Things quickly got, in Butler’s words, “a little out of ____
From the lowest of the charts of the review ____ The Shed continuously climbed the London rankings.
He started ____ e-mails and phone calls requesting reservations.
____ further increased when he told callers The Shed was “fully booked for the next six weeks.”
Even funnier, food suppliers started guessing The Shed’s address and sent him free samples, and many job ____ came in.
These things happened ____ Butler serving a single meal.
The Shed ____ became London’s number-one restaurant on one of the most trusted restaurant review sites.
According to Butler, The Shed held that ranking ____ two weeks.
Butler’s story shows that
Butler’s story shows that much of what we ____ on the Internet cannot be trusted.
This emphasizes ____ importance of digital literacy.
Digital ____ is about more than just using computers.
It is the ability to use digital technology to find, evaluate, create, ____ communicate information.
To become digitally literate, we need to develop ____ attitude and knowledge that enable us to detect false information online.
____ information is any information that misinforms or deceives people.
It can be ____ anything such as health, the environment, and economics across many platforms.
It can be influential, as ____ Shed incident shows.
If people had been digitally literate
If people had been digitally literate, they would not have been ____ by The Shed experiment so easily.
Digitally literate people would have carefully considered information about ____ Shed without being distracted by other people’s reactions.
They would have been suspicious that the ____ did not have an address.
They ____ have wondered why reviews on the restaurant did not appear in other more credible media.
If they had done these things, they would ____ have suspected that something was not right.
Fortunately, The Shed incident ____ an experiment that caused little damage.
However, false information can ____ emotional or financial harm to people.
For ____ false information about a certain gender or belief group can stir up hatred against that group.
It can cause fights between those ____ support the group and those who do not.
In addition, ____ online reviews about questionable products often trick people into wasting money.
To avoid being deceived
To avoid being ____ by false information, we need to develop a habit of critically evaluating what we see online.
If you see a story that looks too good or ____ bad to be true, check the source first.
Look at the ____ the story comes from.
Does it look real? Are there spelling errors? Does it have other stories or just the one you ____
Check that the ____ contains references and links to other information.
____ on those links and see if the other information looks reliable.
Websites with false ____ often do not have many real stories about other topics.
They also often have lots of advertisements that pop up when ____ visit the sites.
____ should then check the credibility of the content creator.
If a story has ____ writer’s name, this could be a sign that its content is questionable.
If there is a ____ find out what and where the person has reported before.
If the person has not written anything ____ or writes for a website that looks unreliable, think twice before believing the content.
Finally
Finally, check who else is ____ the story.
If no other media are reporting the same story, the story may ____ be true.
____ a few keywords from the story and put them in a search site to see if other media are supporting the story.
Sorting through the vast amount of information created and ____ online is challenging.
However, it is important that we know what ____ information is and how it spreads.
The better we recognize ____ information, the better we will be at avoiding it and helping others do the same.