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Disinformation Debunking Station

How to Prebunk and Debunk Disinformation

Students check a websiteThe tools to help us wade through the information muck out there are as many and varied as the reasons we fall prey to false narratives.  This page offers a curated collection to help us, from fact checking websites to apps to educational resources. Most of all we need to motivate ourselves and our neighbors to better understand the part we play in the problem and the means to solve it. We can do it together! 

Learn About Disinformation by Playing a Game

Harmony Square Game - designed to expose the tactics and manipulation techniques that bad actors use to mislead their audience. Developed by researchers at the Cambridge Social Decision Lab

Bad News Game - see how fast you can spread fake news. Also developed by researchers at the University of Cambridge

 GeoGuesser - provides good practice in recognizing misused images.

Spot the Troll - A game developed at the Clemson University Media Forensics Hub to help practice spotting fake media accounts.

Use widgets, apps and other tools such as:

  • Tools from OSoMe, Indiana University's Observatory on Social Media, includes the awesome Hoaxy, Botometer and Botslayer
  • Tools from RAND, a long list of great widgets, apps, and other tools like Bad News, Captain Fact and many more!

Identify Misused and Altered Images

Putin on bear

The MIT Media Lab has a super overview of how to detect deepfakes that includes a link to test your skills. Highly recommended! Here's another overview of how to spot manipulated images from the German news organization, Deutsche Welle. This resource also provides an opportunity to test your skills at spotting manipulated images at Which Face is Real?

Additional tools to help us in this effort include: 

For Educators

  • Calling Bull: Data Reasoning in a Digital World: "Our aim in this course is to teach you how to think critically about the data and models that constitute evidence in the social and natural sciences." This course is suitable for college level learners.
  • Checkology: Checkology classroom resources were developed by the News Literacy Project, which works with educators and journalists to give students the skills they need to discern fact from fiction and to know what to trust. These resources are adaptable for middle school through adult learners.
  • Civic Online Reasoning: "The COR curriculum provides free lessons and assessments that help you teach students to evaluate online information that affects them, their communities, and the world." The COR curriculum is adaptable for middle school through college learners.
  • Hit Pause:  A series of videos by YouTube to help us spot false and misleading information.
Open Educational Resources (OER)

Disinfo Squad Handbook, by Elizabeth Ramsey, Boise State University

News Literacy and Democracy by Seth Ashley, Boise State University

The Debunking Handbook, by Stephan Lewandowsky, et al.