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 ____ Shed at Dulwich.
Butler set up an account for ____ “restaurant” on a popular online review site.
He did not provide an exact address and wrote it was reservations ____
He did this to make people think ____ Shed was a special restaurant.
He faked photos of The Shed’s food with ____ cream, whitening tablets, and even his own foot.
He then asked his friends to write favorable fake reviews on the review ____
Things quickly got, ____ Butler’s words, “a little out of hand.”
From the lowest of the charts of the review site, The Shed ____ climbed the London rankings.
____ started getting e-mails and phone calls requesting reservations.
Interest further increased ____ he told callers The Shed was “fully booked for the next six weeks.”
Even funnier, food suppliers ____ guessing The Shed’s address and sent him free samples, and many job applications came in.
____ things happened without Butler serving a single meal.
The Shed eventually ____ London’s number-one restaurant on one of the most trusted restaurant review sites.
According to Butler, The Shed held that ranking for ____ weeks.
Butler’s story shows
Butler’s story shows that much of what we see on the ____ cannot be trusted.
This emphasizes the importance ____ digital literacy.
Digital literacy is ____ more than just using computers.
It is the ability to use digital technology to find, evaluate, create, and ____ information.
To become digitally literate, we need to develop an attitude and knowledge that enable us to ____ false information online.
____ information is any information that misinforms or deceives people.
It ____ be about anything such as health, the environment, and economics across many platforms.
It can be ____ as The Shed incident shows.
____ people had been digitally literate, they would not have been fooled by The Shed experiment so easily.
Digitally literate people would have carefully considered information about The ____ without being distracted by other people’s reactions.
They would have been suspicious that the restaurant ____ not have an address.
They ____ have wondered why reviews on the restaurant did not appear in other more credible media.
If they had done these things, they would likely have suspected that something was ____ right.
Fortunately, ____ Shed incident was an experiment that caused little damage.
However, false information can cause emotional ____ financial harm to people.
For ____ false information about a certain gender or belief group can stir up hatred against that group.
It can ____ fights between those who support the group and those who do not.
In addition, misleading online reviews about questionable products often ____ people into wasting money.
To avoid being deceived
To avoid being deceived by false information, we need to develop a habit ____ critically evaluating what we see online.
If you see a story that looks too good or too bad to be true, check the source ____
Look at the website the story ____ from.
Does it look real? ____ there spelling errors? Does it have other stories or just the one you read?
Check that the story contains references and links ____ other information.
Click on those links and see if the other information ____ reliable.
Websites with false information ____ do not have many real stories about other topics.
They also ____ have lots of advertisements that pop up when you visit the sites.
You should then check the credibility of ____ content creator.
If a story has no writer’s name, this could be a ____ that its content is questionable.
If ____ is a name, find out what and where the person has reported before.
If the person has not written anything else or ____ for a website that looks unreliable, think twice before believing the content.
Finally, ____ who else is reporting the story.
If no ____ media are reporting the same story, the story may not be true.
Pick a few keywords from the story and put them in a search site to ____ if other media are supporting the story.
Sorting through the vast amount ____ information created and shared online is challenging.
However, it is important that we know what ____ information is and how it spreads.
The ____ we recognize false information, the better we will be at avoiding it and helping others do the same.