The lion’s share of fake news and manipulative materials can be identified at a glance – literally in 2 seconds – if you know the basic principles of information hygiene.
The Internet and telegram channels bombard us with streams of information, much of which is either a lie or manipulation, or advertising, which is also a form of manipulation. To understand the truthfulness of information, you need to have a good knowledge of the topic, and not everyone has time for that. But there are a number of false news and information materials whose manipulative nature can be identified at a glance – literally in 2 seconds – if you know the criteria of information hygiene. Based on this knowledge, you can avoid the lion’s share of fakes spread on the Internet by recognizing them by their name and form of presentation.
One such criterion is sensationalism with screaming headlines and the indispensable labels “Shock!”, “Sensation”, “Scandal”, etc. Headlines of videos and news stories with titles such as “Putin’s corpse was found in the refrigerator”, “Shock! The United States is draining Ukraine”, “Expert reveals the truth about the causes of the war in Ukraine!”, etc. are openly manipulative and clickbait. Clickbait headlines are informational bait created only to get you to click on the news or video and follow the link – and then it doesn’t matter, because they have already made money on your website traffic or simply increased the number of views at your expense, which is then converted into money.
Most of the time, it turns out that there is no sensation there, but just someone’s subjective and poorly substantiated opinion on a relevant topic. With screaming headlines, content creators manipulate our consciousness, make us interested in a fictional or exaggerated sensation, and simply make money from naive viewers. The reality is not what manipulators describe in clickbait news. All news with headlines like “You won’t believe…”, “It turned out that”, “Sensation”, “Read it all!”, “It became known”, “Shocking truth”, “It blew up the network” are usually manipulations. They are also presented in the most primitive form. If we see clickbait headlines, we don’t fall for manipulation and ignore them.
Another feature of fake news and a sign of manipulative headlines is capitals – words written in CAPITALS. “Shock”, “Sensation”, etc. are all forms of manipulation and attention grabbing. And why do content authors want to attract our attention? They want us to take the information bait, go to their website or channel, and let them make money. Reputable news and analytical media that adhere to journalism standards and strive to convey the balanced truth to readers avoid using clickbait and capslocks in their headlines.
One of the signs of fake news and manipulation is the pronounced emotions and images in the headlines: “Sabbath in Kyiv: Nazis tried to seize the UOC-MP church”, “Greedy capitalists rob the people!”, “Benderites crucified a boy in panties”, etc. Emotionally biased news is a way to make an idiot out of a normal person by blocking their minds with emotions: to cause anger, indignation, indignation, anger, emotion and pointing fingers at the guilty. And emotional vocabulary: exaggerations, far-fetched epithets, negatively colored words, outright insults, and nicknames are direct signs of manipulation. If we see that content creators are manipulating us, why should we read or watch their materials and take them seriously?
Emotions, images, clickbait headlines, often in BIG letters, telling us about some “sensation” and “the whole truth about…” – are just the tip of the manipulators’ iceberg and not the whole list of obvious signs of manipulation that are visible at first glance.
But knowing these criteria, you can recognize a large part of online manipulation at a glance and avoid it.
Author: Valeriy Maydanyuk
Leave a Reply