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"Learn the language that can help you—and your students—decode the complexities of the digital-media landscape. This vocabulary list ..."

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Learn the language that can help you-and your students-decode the complexities of the digital-media landscape. This vocabulary list covers the many ways "fake news" finds its way online, highlights key terms necessary to understand media manipulation, and describes how our brains absorb information-and how they can steer us away from the truth.

As our story " What Is the 'Alt-Right'?" reveals, the internet can be a gateway to hate, particularly for young people who don't know how to critically evaluate sources. This list is part of Teaching Tolerance's new digital literacy project, an initiative to help educators bring these concepts into the classroom and equip students to guard against hate and bias online.

Agnotology: The study of ignorance.

Algorithm: A procedure used to locate specific data within a collection of information. Also called a "search algorithm."

Apophenia: The tendency to perceive meaningful connections in unrelated things; seeing patterns where none exist.

Astroturfing: The practice of concealing the financial stakeholders promoting a message or an organization so that it seems to come from and be supported by grassroots entities.

Belief perseverance: The tendency to continue believing something even after learning that the foundation of the belief is false.

Bot: An automated online program; short for web robot.

Chan culture: Beliefs and activities related to online message boards such as 4chan and 8chan, where often-offensive images and memes are created and distributed.

Clickbait: Online content created with the primary purpose of attracting visitors and enticing them to click on a link to a specific web page.

Confirmation bias: The tendency to process new information as confirmation of the beliefs one already holds.

Cognitive bias: A mental-processing error (e.g., in reasoning, interpreting or remembering) that often results from clinging to preferences and beliefs in spite of contrary evidence.

Computational propaganda: The manipulation of information and communication technologies to influence attitudes, thinking processes and behavior.

Copypasta: A block of online text that has been copied and pasted from somewhere else.

Counterknowledge: Inaccurate information that is presented as fact and is believed by a critical mass of people.

Crowdsourcing: The practice of acquiring information for or contributions to a project by seeking the aid of a large number of people, usually via the internet.

Digital footprint: The information about a person that can be found online as a result of their internet activity.

Digital native: A person born or raised during the digital age and who is assumed to be familiar with the internet, computers and other digital technology from an early age.

Disinformation: False information that is disseminated to the media or other entities with the purpose of deceiving.

Dox: To publicly share private or identifying information about a person online, usually with a malicious or vengeful purpose.

Dunning-Kruger effect: A cognitive bias that leads people of limited skills or knowledge to mistakenly believe their abilities are greater than they actually are.

Fake news: Disinformation that is presented as news and optimized for online sharing.

Filter bubble: The limited perspective that can result from personalized search algorithms.

Group polarization: A group's tendency to make more extreme decisions than its individual members would typically be inclined to make.

Groupthink: A group's practice of thinking or making decisions in such a way that promotes harmony and conformity within the group at the expense of creativity or individual responsibility.

Heuristic: A cognitive shortcut, rule or method that helps people solve problems in less time than it would take to think the problem all the way through.

Homophily: The tendency to form connections with people who are similar to oneself.

Illusion of comprehension: A cognitive bias that occurs when people mistake familiarity or awareness for understanding. Also called the "familiarity effect."

Information cascade: A phenomenon in which people echo the opinions of others, usually online, even when their own opinions or exposure to information contradicts that opinion. When information cascades form a pattern, this pattern can begin to overpower later opinions by making it seem as if a consensus already exists.

Information diet: The kinds and quantity of information that a person consumes on a regular basis.

Information literacy: The ability to recognize the need for information and to locate, analyze and use it effectively in a variety of ways.

Information pollution: The tainting of available information with inaccuracy, redundancy and lack of quality.

Infotainment: Material, online or otherwise, that combines information with entertainment. Often used to describe material ostensibly intended to inform but which is primarily designed for entertainment.

Lulz: Laughter and enjoyment, usually at someone else's expense.

Media hacking: The manipulation of electronic and online media, especially social media, to shape a particular narrative.

Meme: An image, video, phrase, symbol or other piece of culture that is meant to be funny and is shared widely via the internet, often with slight changes.

Memejacking: The act of hijacking a meme and using it for purposes different from those of its original authors.

Motivated reasoning: The tendency to process new information in such a way that it will fit with previously held beliefs.

Myside bias: The tendency to endorse information that supports one's previously held beliefs, truth notwithstanding.

Native advertising: Online advertising that fluidly adheres to the look and feel of the context or platform in which it is placed.

Opinion laundering: The practice of making opinions seem more valid by representing them as coming from think tanks or other sources that seem reliable. See Astroturfing.

Poe's law: Taken from a comment made by an online forum participant, Nathan Poe, the idea that it is nearly impossible to distinguish between an extremist view and a parody of it without clear evidence of the author's purpose.

Social spam: Unwanted material that shows up on social networking platforms and any website with content generated by users.

Sock puppet: An online user posing as another person-often a real person-usually to express their own views anonymously.

Sponsored content: An advertiser's paid content in an online publication that takes on the look and qualities of that publisher's editorial content.

Stealth marketing: The practice of paying people to promote products without revealing that those people are being compensated.

Troll: A person who engages in provocative or harassing online behavior using their real identity. Distinct from a Bot or a Sock puppet.

Two-sides fallacy: The presentation of an issue that makes it seem to have two sides of equal weight or significance, when in fact a consensus or much stronger argument supports just one side. Also called "false balance" or "false equivalence."

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Teaching Tolerance provides free resources to educators-teachers, administrators, counselors and other practitioners-who work with children from kindergarten through high school. Educators use our materials to supplement the curriculum, to inform their practices, and to create civil and inclusive school communities where children are respected, valued and welcome participants.

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Center for News Literacy's Digital Resource Center

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Center for News Literacy's Digital Resource Center

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Vocabulary

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Glossary: The Language of News Literacy | Stony Brook Center for News Literacy

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Media Bias is a pattern of unfairness or willful inaccuracy over time by a specific journalist or news outlet. It cannot be proven by a single isolated incident. Audience Bias is a News Literacy term describing the tendency of individuals to see bias in news media reports because they are unconsciously viewing journalism through their own biases.

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How to choose your news - Damon Brown

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View full lesson: http://ed.ted.com/lessons/how-to-choose-your-news-damon-brown With the advent of the Internet and social media, news is distributed at an incredible rate by an unprecedented number of different media outlets. How do we choose which news to consume?

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On April 14, 2014, the terrorist organization Boko Haram kidnapped more than 200 schoolgirls from the town of Chibok, Nigeria. Around the world, the crime became epitomized by the slogan #BringBackOurGirls -- but in Nigeria, government officials called the crime a hoax, confusing and delaying efforts to rescue the girls. In this powerful talk, journalist Stephanie Busari points to the Chibok tragedy to explain the deadly danger of fake news and what we can do to stop it.

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How did Dylann Roof go from being someone who was not raised in a racist home to someone so steeped in white supremacist propaganda that he murdered nine African Americans during a Bible study?

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How did Dylann Roof go from being someone who was not raised in a racist home to someone so steeped in white supremacist propaganda that he murdered nine African Americans during a Bible study? The answer lies, at least in part, in the way that fragile minds can be shaped by the algorithm that powers Google Search.

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Fake news circulating on Facebook - Denver Post News Room

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Fake news story circulating on Facebook comes from bogus "Denver" news outlet

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A fake news story circulating on Facebook is proven to be bogus. The Denver Post does some digging and finds the story titled, "FBI AGENT SUSPECTED IN HILLARY EMAIL LEAKS FOUND DEAD IN APPARENT MURDER-SUICIDE", simply never happened. The address for the DenverGuardian.com newsroom leads to a tree in a parking lot on Colfax.

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The Problem with Fake News (and how our students can solve it) - John Spencer

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Helping Students Identify Fake News with the Five C's of Critical Consuming

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How false news can spread - Noah Tavlin

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"The Danger of a Single Story" Chimamande Ngozi Adichie & a lesson plan

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Please [contact us](https://www.ted.com/contact) and let us know what happened.

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How Does "Fake" News Become News?

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A Media Specialist's Guide to the Internet

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A Media Specialist's Guide to the Internet

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because you never know when you'll need a cybrarian! All kinds of good stuff here.

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It's all around us. It's permeated Facebook, Twitter, all social media and the Internet. Yet I have seen adults fall for these hoaxes all the time. It's been hard for me to not say anything when I see these stories repeated and shared daily. Many times I have just referenced snopes.com. Yet people fall for this all the time. What about our students? Are they able to adequately evaluate what they are seeing? As I've mentioned before, when I left my school district after my budget dwindled to zero dollars, they did not replace me. That put the entire student population at risk, because presently the district does not have a single certified media specialist! K-12. No one to teach media literacy. No one there to advise and assist students working on research papers. No one.

Below I have collected a slew of resources to aid teachers and their students with the task of spotting fake news. The articles, guides, lesson plans and videos deal with the importance of evaluating websites. If you have any more to add, please comment below.
UPDATED: 4/19/17

ARTICLES
4 Steps Schools Need to Take To Combat Fake News- Huffington Post

5 Ways to Spot Fake News- from Common Sense Media

The 5 Types of Fakes News- from Huffington Post

6 Ways to Spot Fake News- from Snopes

10 Ways to Spot a Fake News Article- from EasyBib

The Classroom Where Fake News Fails- from NPR

Fake News Fooling Millions- from Scholastic's Up Front Magazine
Fake News Sites to Watch Out For on Facebook

Fighting Fake News- American Libraries

Google and Facebook Take Aim at Fake News Sites- N.Y. Times

Higher Ed Takes on Fake News Epidemic- from Education Dive

How Photos Fuel the Spread of Fake News

How Savvy Are Your Students? 7 Fake Websites to Really Test Their Evaluation Skills-EasyBib

How to Spot Fake News (and Teach Kids to Be Media Sayvy)- Common Sense Media

Most Students Don't Know When News is Fake, Stanford Study Finds- Wall Street Journal

A News Literacy Tool Kit for a "Post Truth" World- Joyce Valenza's blog

The Real History of Fake News- from The Columbia Journalism Review

The Smell Test: Educators Can Counter Fake New with Information Literacy- SLJ

Students Need Our Help Detecting Fake News- from MiddleWeb

Three Historical Examples of "Fake News"- Scientific American

What are You Doing to Teach Students to Spot Fake News Stories?- by Bill Ferriter

What Stands Between Fake News and Students? Educators- from NEA

GUIDES TO WEBSITE EVALUATION
Misc.
Checklist for Evaluating Web Resources

Credible Sources Count- view a 10-minute interactive tutorial about how to find sites you can trust. EXCELLENT!

EasyBib Website Evaluation Guide

Finding Reliable Information Online- slide presentation from middle school teacher Sean Hinger

How Savvy are Your Students? 7 Fake Websites to Really Test Their Evaluation Skills- EasyBib

*Kathy Schrock
* The 5 W's of Website Evaluation

* Critical Evaluation of a Website- high School

* Critical Evaluation of a Website- middle school

* Critical Evaluation of a Website- elementary school

Ten Questions for Fake News Detection- infographic checklist

University of Berkeley Library- an excellent tutorial on finding information on the Internet

Website Evaluation Guide- from EasyBib

LESSON PLANS
Brain Pop: Fact and Opinion- interactive fun for the younger kids

Evaluating the Purpose of a Website- from EasyBib

Evaluating Sources in a 'Post-Truth' World: Ideas for Teaching About Fake News- NY Times Lessons

Fake News vs. Real News: Determining the Reliability of Sources- NY Times Learning Network

Fighting Fake News- includes Common Core standards

"He Said, She Said"-Reliable Sources- from School Journalism site

H oax or No Hoax? Strategies for Online Comprehension and Evaluation- from ReadWriteThink; grades 9-12

Hoax? Scholarly Research? Personal Opinion? You Decide- lesson for high schoolers

How to Teach Your Students About Fake News- from PBS NewsHour; grades 7-9

I Heard it 'Round the Internet: Sexual Health Education & Authenticating Online Information- grades 7-9

Media Literacy and Fake News- from C-SPAN; grade not specified, but probably 9-12

VIDEOS

WEBSITES

FactCheck- project of the Annenberg Public Policy Center
Fake News Sites to Watch Out For on Facebook-

Fake News Watch- updates regularly; lists Fake/Hoax Websites, Satire Websites and Clickbait Websites.

Politifact- checking U.S. politics

Museum of Hoaxes- bogus web sites from A to Z

News Literacy Project- assists students in discerning real vs. fake news

Snopes- fact-checking site

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Can Your Students Spot Fake News? Here are 71 Links to Help

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It's all around us. It's permeated Facebook, Twitter, all social media and the Internet. Yet I have seen adults fall for these hoaxes all the time. It's been hard for me to not say anything when I see these stories repeated and shared daily. Many times I have just referenced snopes.com.

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This chart has been making the rounds and I finally found the source. The Reasoning and Methodology Behind The Chart

Another article from the same site: The Chart, Second Edition: What Makes A News Source “Good?”

CHARTS:

High Resolution File Formats for Full Chart and Blank Versions of News Quality Chart

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Alternative Facts and Fake News – Verifiability in the Information Society

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A tool that gives you news content at a variety of reading levels

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It's time to improve literacy skills during social studies instruction and ensure that readers of all abilities have what they need to access grade-level social studies concepts.

Join us on Thursday, December 7 for a look at scaffolded materials that provide extra literacy support while building key social studies concepts and skills.

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Newsela | Content and assessment platform

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Content Aligned To National & State Standard, Flexible To Support Relevant Curriculum. Find the Perfect Piece Of Content For Lessons. Go beyond the book.

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What Your Students Really Need to Know About Digital Citizenship

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Why Media Literacy Matters

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How to spot a misleading graph - Lea Gaslowitz

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How to spot a misleading graph - Lea Gaslowitz

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View full lesson: http://ed.ted.com/lessons/how-to-spot-a-misleading-graph-lea-gaslowitz When they're used well, graphs can help us intuitively grasp complex data. But as visual software has enabled more usage of graphs throughout all media, it has also made them easier to use in a careless or dishonest way - and as it turns out, there are plenty of ways graphs can mislead and outright manipulate.

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E.S.C.A.P.E. Junk News
Is This Story Share-Worthy?

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Turning Students into Fact-Finding Web detectives

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Common Sense Education provides educators and students with the resources they need to harness the power of technology for learning and life. Find a free K-12 Digital Citizenship curriculum, reviews of popular EdTech apps, and resources for protecting student privacy.

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Checkology.org

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Common Sense K-12 Digital Citizenship Curriculum

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Interactive lessons and activities for all students!

Use digital citizenship lesson plans to address timely topics and prepare students to take ownership of their digital lives. Browse lessons by grade and topic below, or see an overview of the curriculum.
We've got more new lessons! Explore all lesson plans or check our lesson collections!

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DigCit Curriculum | Common Sense Education

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Research-backed digital citizenship lesson plans help schools navigate timely topics, such as cyberbullying, online safety, privacy, and media literacy.

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A game that tests your news sense.

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An interesting NPR piece interviewing a major creator of purposefully false news.

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A lot of fake and misleading news stories were shared across social media during the election. One that got a lot of traffic had this headline: "FBI Agent Suspected In Hillary Email Leaks Found Dead In Apparent Murder-Suicide." The story is completely false, but it was shared on Facebook over half a million times.

We wondered who was behind that story and why it was written. It appeared on a site that had the look and feel of a local newspaper. Denverguardian.com even had the local weather. But it had only one news story - the fake one.

We tried to look up who owned it and hit a wall. The site was registered anonymously. So we brought in some professional help.

By day, John Jansen is head of engineering at Master-McNeil Inc., a tech company in Berkeley, Calif. In the interest of real news he helped us track down the owner of Denverguardian.com.

Jansen started by looking at the site's history. "Commonly that's called scraping or crawling websites," he says.

Jansen is kind of like an archaeologist. He says that nothing you do on the Web disappears - it just gets buried - like a fossil. But if you do some digging you'll find those fossils and learn a lot of history.

The "Denver Guardian" was built and designed using a pretty common platform - WordPress. It's used by bloggers and people who want to create their own websites. Jansen found that the first entry ever for the site was done by someone with the handle LetTexasSecede.

The whole idea from the start was to build a site that could kind of infiltrate the echo chambers of the alt-right, publish blatantly or fictional stories and then be able to publicly denounce those stories and point out the fact that they were fiction.

"That was sort of the thread that started to unravel everything," Jansen says. "I was able to track that through to a bunch of other sites which are where that handle is also present."

The sites include NationalReport.net, USAToday.com.co, WashingtonPost.com.co. All the addresses linked to a single rented server inside Amazon Web Services. That meant they were all very likely owned by the same company. Jansen found an email address on one of those sites and was able to link that address to a name: Jestin Coler.

Online, Coler was listed as the founder and CEO of a company called Disinfomedia. Coler's LinkedIn profile said he once sold magazine subscriptions, worked as a database administrator and as a freelance writer for among others, International Yachtsman magazine. And, using his name, we found a home address.

On a warm, sunny afternoon I set out with a producer for a suburb of Los Angeles. Coler lived in a middle-class neighborhood of pastel-colored one-story beach bungalows. His home had an unwatered lawn - probably the result of California's ongoing drought. There was a black minivan in the driveway and a large prominent American flag.

We rang the front doorbell and a man answered, his face obscured by a heavy mesh steel screen. I asked for Jestin Coler. The man indicated that's who he was. But when I asked about Disinfomedia, he said, "I don't know what to tell you guys. Have a good day."

We left Coler our contact information thinking he wasn't likely to talk. But a couple of hours later he had a change of heart. He sent us an email and we set up an interview.

Coler is a soft-spoken 40-year-old with a wife and two kids. He says he got into fake news around 2013 to highlight the extremism of the white nationalist alt-right.

"The whole idea from the start was to build a site that could kind of infiltrate the echo chambers of the alt-right, publish blatantly or fictional stories and then be able to publicly denounce those stories and point out the fact that they were fiction," Coler says.

He was amazed at how quickly fake news could spread and how easily people believe it. He wrote one fake story for NationalReport.net about how customers in Colorado marijuana shops were using food stamps to buy pot.

"What that turned into was a state representative in the House in Colorado proposing actual legislation to prevent people from using their food stamps to buy marijuana based on something that had just never happened," Coler says.

During the run-up to the presidential election, fake news really took off. "It was just anybody with a blog can get on there and find a big, huge Facebook group of kind of rabid Trump supporters just waiting to eat up this red meat that they're about to get served," Coler says. "It caused an explosion in the number of sites. I mean, my gosh, the number of just fake accounts on Facebook exploded during the Trump election."

Coler says his writers have tried to write fake news for liberals - but they just never take the bait.

Coler's company, Disinfomedia, owns many faux news sites - he won't say how many. But he says his is one of the biggest fake-news businesses out there, which makes him a sort of godfather of the industry.

At any given time, Coler says, he has between 20 and 25 writers. And it was one of them who wrote the story in the "Denver Guardian" that an FBI agent who leaked Clinton emails was killed. Coler says that over 10 days the site got 1.6 million views. He says stories like this work because they fit into existing right-wing conspiracy theories.

"The people wanted to hear this," he says. "So all it took was to write that story. Everything about it was fictional: the town, the people, the sheriff, the FBI guy. And then ... our social media guys kind of go out and do a little dropping it throughout Trump groups and Trump forums and boy it spread like wildfire."

And as the stories spread, Coler makes money from the ads on his websites. He wouldn't give exact figures, but he says stories about other fake-news proprietors making between $10,000 and $30,000 a month apply to him. Coler fits into a pattern of other faux news sites that make good money, especially by targeting Trump supporters.

However, Coler insists this is not about money. It's about showing how easily fake news spreads. And fake news spread wide and far before the election. When I pointed out to Coler that the money gave him a lot of incentive to keep doing it regardless of the impact, he admitted that was "correct."

Coler says he has tried to shine a light on the problem of fake news. He has spoken to the media about it. But those organizations didn't know who he actually was. He gave them a fake name: Allen Montgomery.

Coler, a registered Democrat, says he has no regrets about his fake news empire. He doesn't think fake news swayed the election.

"There are many factors as to why Trump won that don't involve fake news," he says. "As much as I like Hillary, she was a poor candidate. She brought in a lot of baggage."

Coler doesn't think fake news is going away. One of his sites - NationalReport.net - was flagged as fake news under a new Google policy, and Google stopped running ads on it. But Coler had other options.

"There are literally hundreds of ad networks," he says. "Early last week, my inbox was just filled every day with people because they knew that Google was cracking down - hundreds of people wanting to work with my sites."

Coler says he has been talking it over with his wife and may be getting out of the fake-news racket. But, he says, dozens, maybe hundreds of entrepreneurs will be ready to take his place. And he thinks it will only get harder to tell their websites from real news sites. They know now that fake news sells and they will only be in it for the money.

Below are highlights of NPR's interview with Coler.

Interview Highlights
Tell me a little about why you started Disinfomedia?
Late 2012, early 2013 I was spending a lot of time researching what is now being referred to as the alt-right. I identified a problem with the news that they were spreading and created Disinfomedia as a response to that. The whole idea from the start was to build a site that could infiltrate the echo chambers of the alt-right, publish blatantly false or fictional stories and then be able to publicly denounce those stories and point out the fact that they were fiction.
What got you engaged in this?
My educational background is in political science. I've always enjoyed the ideas of propaganda and misinformation. Then I coupled that with an interest in what makes things go viral. So that led me to finding those groups and ultimately to finding contributors. But it was just something I had an interest in that I wanted to pursue.
When did you notice that fake news does best with Trump supporters?
Well, this isn't just a Trump-supporter problem. This is a right-wing issue. Sarah Palin's famous blasting of the lamestream media is kind of record and testament to the rise of these kinds of people. The post-fact era is what I would refer to it as. This isn't something that started with Trump. This is something that's been in the works for a while. His whole campaign was this thing of discrediting mainstream media sources, which is one of those dog whistles to his supporters. When we were coming up with headlines it's always kind of about the red meat. Trump really got into the red meat. He knew who his base was. He knew how to feed them a constant diet of this red meat.

We've tried to do similar things to liberals. It just has never worked, it never takes off. You'll get debunked within the first two comments and then the whole thing just kind of fizzles out.
How many domains do you own and run?
Well, I would say there's somewhere around 25 domains that I am currently managing. National Report has been my bread and butter, where I've spent most of my time. I have people who work with me and for me in developing and maintaining the other sites and social media kind of stuff. [Coler later said not all his sites are fake news.] So I, for the most part, focus on National Report, and a lot of the other stuff is run by other folks on the team.
So, you're the publisher of an empire.
Well I wouldn't go so far as to call it an empire but, yes, it's several sites [chuckle].
How many people do you have writing for you?
It comes and goes, and as for actual employed writers, again these guys sort of make their own money through ad code. So I don't say, 'Hey, you have to write 10 stories this week' and this and that. Really, we have a more free-form idea where people, when their creativity strikes them then they can write something. And if they're in a slump then they just go dormant for a while. With that said, at any given time there's probably 20, 25 contributors all over the country. ...
Talk about the "Denver Guardian."
Well, it's kind of a side project. We have some people working on next steps in the fake-news industry, and that came from that whole discussion. We had purchased several domain names that sounded legitimate. ... More local news sort of stories. The idea was to make the sites look as legit as possible so the home page is going to be local news and local forecast, local sports, some obituaries and things of that nature, and then the actual fake news stories were going to be buried off the home page.

We've tried lots of things in the past. The dot-com-dot-co domains were something I toyed in for a while. Those I quickly got away from because you don't get away long with borrowing someone's copyright or trademark. That was something that worked very well from a fake-news perspective. People were fooled into the domain name, but that wasn't so much what we were after. So again, the next step was to go after more city-type sites. And the "Denver Guardian" was one of those sites.
You're talking about the future of this (fake-news business) which looks more insidious because it's more real?
That's the way that it's going to be. Not just from where I am. I mean, this is probably going to be my last run in the fake-news biz, but I can promise you that it's not going to go away. It's even going to grow bigger and it's going to be harder to identify as it kind of evolves through these steps. ...
Do you know who wrote the actual FBI Clinton story?
I do know who wrote the story, but only through an anonymous pen name. Privacy is something that we take very seriously in our writers group. The actual reasonings behind that story ... it's one of hundreds that have been written about mysterious deaths of Clinton associates or political foes. This one kind of took off more than others, I believe, just because of the nature of the story. The people wanted to hear this. So all it took was to write that story. Everything about it was fictional. The town, the people, the sheriff, the FBI guy. Then, we had our social media guys kind of go out and do a little dropping it throughout Trump groups and Trump forums and boy it spread like wildfire.
Why hide your identity?
This isn't the safest business to be in, to be honest. Just the number of death threats I've received. I have a beautiful family, a beautiful life.

Some of these people that we ... bait is probably the right word - are often - let's call them the deplorables, right? They're not the safest crowd. Some of them I would consider domestic terrorists. So they're just not people that I want to be knocking on my door.
It seems like National Report is getting spoofier.
If you went to National Report today, it's specifically satire. "Chris Christie nominated to Supreme Food Court." "Sarah Palin Banning Muslims from Entering Bristol Palin." They're a little bit more offensive than some people care for their satire. I mean fat-shaming and slut-shaming isn't something that is normally met with applause. But again, it's a lot more fun in nature.
Do you make serious money?
It depends on what you would call serious money. I think I do pretty well.
Can you say how well?
I would rather not. There have been some people who have been reported on recently. The folks in Long Beach that were doing just all right stuff. They were reporting $10,000 to $30,000 a month; I think that's probably a relative ballpark.
So you're doing as well as those?
Yes.
You're making money through the ads?
Yes.
Who do you work with?
We have several advertisers. Google was one, although they shut down my account last week. We've replaced them with other advertisers.
Can I ask who?
There are literally hundreds of ad networks. Literally hundreds. Last week my inbox was just filled everyday with people, because they knew that Google was cracking down - hundreds of people wanting to work with my sites. I kind of applaud Google for their steps, although I think what they're doing is kind of random. They don't really have a process in place for identifying these things. I happen to know a very successful site that, as of today, of this morning is still serving Google ads. So it seems to be a kind of arbitrary step that they're taking either based on, I don't know if it was my reputation within the industry or specifically the "Denver Guardian" site that angered them, or I don't know what it is, but back to your question, there's hundreds of people that will work with me.
What can be done about fake news?
Some of this has to fall on the readers themselves. The consumers of content have to be better at identifying this stuff. We have a whole nation of media-illiterate people. Really, there needs to be something done.
Do you consider yourself an entrepreneur?
Sure.
Are you one of the biggest in the fake-news biz?
If you look at someone who has specifically sometimes peddled in fictional news then I think that I would probably be considered one of the larger sites.
As a liberal, do you have any regrets?
I don't. Again, this is something that I've been crying about for a while. But outside of that, there are many factors as to why Trump won that don't involve fake news, right? As much as I like Hillary, she was a poor candidate. She brought in a lot of baggage.
You don't feel responsible.
I do not.
Do you think you would have kept doing it if it wasn't so lucrative?
Really, the financial part of it isn't the only motivator for me. I do enjoy making a mess of the people that share the content that comes out of our site. It's not just the financial incentive for me. I still enjoy the game I guess.
Would you do this all over again?
Well, I guess it came to a head here and we're talking about it. It'll be interesting to see what happens moving forward. If I had to, if I knew specifically the "Denver Guardian" situation, that would have been handled differently. But everything else, as far as the work I've done with National Report, I'm very proud of, and I'm going to continue doing it.

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We Tracked Down A Fake-News Creator In The Suburbs. Here's What We Learned

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A lot of fake and misleading news stories were shared across social media during the election. One that got a lot of traffic had this headline: "FBI Agent Suspected In Hillary Email Leaks Found Dead In Apparent Murder-Suicide." The story is completely false, but it was shared on Facebook over half a million times.

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"May you live in interesting times." -Chinese curse (apocryphal)

Early in my career, when I was teaching at a magnet school in the East Harlem neighborhood of New York City, I was baffled every year when at least one student would submit an essay making the case for Adolf Hitler as a misunderstood genius. I never refused to let a student make his or her case. Instead, I would monitor the student's work closely, demand rigorous evidence for any argument, and play devil's advocate. Their arguments extolling historical tyrants tended to fall apart as soon as the investigation pushed past internet imagery and memes.

Generally, if students in the United States want to work through what may seem a dubious political or ethical topic, history teachers do not flatly deny them the opportunity to do so. Regardless of the students' motives, a flat denial of their inquiry will often be counterproductive. The history teacher's job is not to tell students what to think; instead, we must give students opportunities to challenge conventional wisdom. We don't want our students to become automatons regurgitating narratives, but critical thinkers who can take their place as informed citizens in an advanced democracy.

On the surface, my current experience as a teacher at an international school in the People's Republic of China (PRC) could not be more different. Here, I have not only had to shut down the research choices of my students, but my colleagues and I have been instructed to avoid certain historical topics altogether. In the PRC, the impact of communist revolutionary Mao Zedong on modern China and "The Three Ts" (Tibet, Taiwan, and Tiananmen Square) are considered no-go zones for historical study. The government actually provides a guideline for understanding Mao that stems from a statement by former Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping in 1981: Mao was 70 percent right in his actions, and 30 percent wrong. Full stop. Develop your curriculum from here.

Two years ago, this matter came to a head when one of my students wanted to write her extended essay (the senior thesis required to earn an International Baccalaureate, or IB, diploma) on Mao's culpability during the Great Leap Forward, his largely failed attempt to industrialize China in 10 years through subsequent USSR-style five-year plans. After her choice of essay was denied by school representatives without an explanation, her parents petitioned me for a reason.

I referred to the school's by-laws, which explicitly state that the school, its employees, and its students will operate in compliance with the laws and the constitution of the PRC. Studying an English translation of the PRC's constitution, I learned that the treatment of historical subjects of sensitivity-as defined by the state-is subject to state scrutiny and possible prosecution, especially if shared or distributed online. As IB extended essays are now uploaded to the internet for submission, the school's position in accordance with the law was clear.

To be fair, my students and their families moved to China voluntarily and no one forced them to enroll at my school. I also came of my own accord, knowing very well that I may face challenges as a history teacher working within an unfamiliar political system.

This is not my first close encounter with autocracy. Before visiting Burma (now Myanmar) in 1999, I asked my senior thesis advisor from college, an expert in Burma and decolonization, about the ethics of being a tourist in an authoritarian state. He encouraged me to go, advising, "Bill, how else are we going to learn about the truth of the situation there? And how sure are you that the government of the United States hasn't resembled Burma's in the past, or that it won't in the future? Don't throw stones until you test the walls."

Keeping an open mind, however, is different than avoiding controversial topics, especially those of critical contemporary relevance. Our challenge as teachers in the PRC is finding a way to respect the school's obligation to its government and community, while still helping students grapple with the big questions of their day-all without getting fired.

Here are a few solutions my colleagues and I have devised:

1. We redesigned the curriculum to focus not on East Asia, but on the Americas (one of the four choices offered by the International Baccalaureate organization). In this framework, we can still cover China's role in international events like World War II and the Cold War, while avoiding sensitive domestic issues.

2. We reselected our core units to include decolonization, civil rights, human rights, and U.S. foreign policy. This allows us to address key human rights issues as faced by people in the United States, Latin America, and the former European colonies.

3. We made the issues of the day a primer for learning about the issues of the past. Using worldwide current events as a springboard for our discussions, we make connections between contemporary consequences and their historical causes-and always round back to discuss change and continuity over time.

The end result? We have cultivated a cohort of students who have never directly addressed the three Ts and Mao's 30-percent culpability through their submitted work, but have been exposed to parallel case studies that give them the critical thinking tools they need to grapple with these forbidden topics. Hallway conversations about China's expansion in the South China Sea, challenges to the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal, and government responses to Hong Kong's Umbrella Revolution are not against the law, and, as Mark Twain would observe, they "rhyme" well with past events like the annexation of Tibet, the continued sensitivity over the One China policy, and the 1989 demonstrations in Tiananmen Square.

History rhymes right across the Pacific. My experience in China has taught me to raise controversial issues in challenging circumstances. As a teacher in the PRC, I strive to respect all members of the community while refusing to retreat from necessary conversations. This can instruct teachers' conduct in American classrooms as well.

How are the walls in your classroom these days? Do they stand solidly against the challenge of 'alternative facts'; threats to defund programs critical to historical literacy, like the National Endowment for the Humanities; and movements to ban seminal revisionist history texts, like A People's History of the United States?

There is no 70/30 rule in the United States, so be creative. Respect your community and stay in the classroom, but hold the powerful accountable for their actions. Remember, it's our duty as American educators-and as citizens-to ensure that our nation's "Ts" are not shielded from history, but face scrutiny in both the present and the future.

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Teaching Controversial Issues in 'Interesting' Times

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"May you live in interesting times." -Chinese curse (apocryphal) Early in my career, when I was teaching at a magnet school in the East Harlem neighborhood of New York City, I was baffled every year when at least one student would submit an essay making the case for Adolf Hitler as a misunderstood genius.

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Uploaded by The News Literacy Project on 2017-01-11.

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Evaluating Information: The Cornerstone of Civic Online Reasoning

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Over the last year and a half, the Stanford History Education Group has prototyped, field tested, and validated a bank of assessments that tap civic online reasoning-the ability to judge the credi...

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How statistics can be misleading - Mark Liddell

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How statistics can be misleading - Mark Liddell

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How statistics can be misleading - Mark Liddell

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Can you spot the problem with these headlines? (Level 1) - Jeff Leek & Lucy McGowan

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Can you spot the problem with these headlines? (Level 1) - Jeff Leek & Lucy McGowan

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Can you spot the problem with these headlines? (Level 1) - Jeff Leek & Lucy McGowan

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This one weird trick will help you spot clickbait - Jeff Leek & Lucy McGowan

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This one weird trick will help you spot clickbait - Jeff Leek & Lucy McGowan

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This one weird trick will help you spot clickbait - Jeff Leek & Lucy McGowan

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Fighting for Facts and Analysis

A RAND Initiative to Restore the Role of Facts and Analysis in Public Life

RAND is studying "Truth Decay"-the diminishing role of facts and analysis in American public life. As a nonpartisan institution that seeks to advance the public good through research and analysis, RAND is concerned about the threat Truth Decay poses to evidence-based policymaking. We invite fellow researchers and engaged stakeholders to join our efforts to find solutions.

#TruthDecay

Defining "Truth Decay"

RAND defines Truth Decay as the diminishing role of facts and data in American public life. There are four trends that characterize Truth Decay:

1. increasing disagreement about facts and analytical interpretations of facts and data

2. a blurring of the line between opinion and fact

3. the increasing relative volume and resulting influence of opinion and personal experience over fact

4. declining trust in formerly respected sources of facts.

Most of these trends are not unprecedented in American history. But today's level of disagreement over objective facts is a new phenomenon. So how did we get here?

RAND research has investigated what's causing and compounding this problem. The main drivers of Truth Decay include

cognitive biases

the rise of social media and other changes to the information environment

demands on the educational system that limit its ability to keep up with changes in the information ecosystem

political and social polarization.

RAND's research agenda addresses these issues and much more. But research and analysis alone cannot solve the complex problem of Truth Decay. Policymakers, media companies, and individuals must also act on the basis of this research.

Latest Findings

Report

Can media literacy education help counter the diminishing role of facts and analysis in American public life? To find out, RAND experts analyzed what we know-and don't know-about the subject.

More on Truth Decay
Explore all findings

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Want to learn more about how RAND is responding to Truth Decay? Are you a researcher interested in tackling this issue? We want to hear from you.

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Funding for This Project

The RAND Corporation is a research organization that develops solutions to public policy challenges to help make communities throughout the world safer and more secure, healthier and more prosperous. RAND is nonprofit, nonpartisan, and committed to the public interest.

RAND Ventures is a vehicle for investing in such policy solutions. Philanthropic contributions support our ability to take the long view, tackle tough and often-controversial topics, and share our findings in innovative and compelling ways.

RAND's research findings and recommendations are based on data and evidence and therefore do not necessarily reflect the policy preferences or interests of its clients, donors, or supporters.

Funding for this venture was provided by gifts from RAND supporters and income from operations.

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Truth Decay: Fighting for Facts and Analysis

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RAND is studying "Truth Decay"-the diminishing reliance on facts and analysis in American public life. Truth Decay presents a threat to both evidence-based policymaking and democracy. RAND invites fellow researchers and engaged stakeholders to join our efforts to find solutions.