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