LibGuides: Media Literacy: Tools to Evaluate Sources

Tools

FactCheck
Resource that monitors the accuracy of information on matters related to government and policy in the United States.
Politifact.com
Checks the accuracy of media statements made by politicians or regarding policy
Washington Post Fact Checker
Fact checking on issues in the news.

Emergent
A real-time rumor tracker.
Snopes
Investigates urban legends, hoaxes, and folklore.
Two new types of social media hoaxes to look out for
Discusses how to spot common social media hoaxes. From First Draft News.

5 Ways to Spot a Fake Photo
From Scientific American.
A Quick Guide to Spotting Graphics that Lie
From National Geographic. A quick guide to evaluating the presentation of data in graphs and charts.
Detecting Fake Photos With Digital Forensics
From CJR.
Fauxtography
Snopes fact-checks dubious photos that circulate online.
How to Detect a Photoshopped Image
From Lifehacker.
Photo fact-checking in the digital age
Video from the News Literacy Project.

You can use these tools to help uncover whether or not a social media account is fake.

Verification (Online Course)
Learn how to verify Instagram images, the authenticity of a social media account, and images. From First Draft News.
Verification Handbook for Emergency Coverage
Ebook that discusses how to verify sources during an emergency.

Botometer
Checks the activity of a Twitter account and gives it a score based on how likely the account is to be a bot. A collaboration between Indiana University Network Science Institute (IUNI) and the Center for Complex Networks and Systems Research (CNetS).
easyWhois
Find out who owns a website domain.
Polygraph
An international fact-checking website for global news.
Sourcewatch
Tracks orporate public relations (PR) campaigns, including corporate front groups, people who "front" corporate campaigns, and PR operations.
Who tweeted it first?
Finds the first tweet to contain a particular term.