Lesson 4 Be Smart in the Digital World
Fake or Fact, That Is the Question
British writer ____ Butler wanted to experiment with how easily one can manipulate public opinion online.
He created a fake ____ called The Shed at Dulwich.
Butler set up an account for his “restaurant” ____ a popular online review site.
He did not provide an exact address and wrote it was ____ only.
He did this ____ make people think The Shed was a special restaurant.
He faked photos of The ____ food with shaving cream, whitening tablets, and even his own foot.
He then asked his friends to write favorable fake reviews ____ the review site.
Things quickly got, in Butler’s words, ____ little out of hand.”
From the lowest of the charts ____ the review site, The Shed continuously climbed the London rankings.
____ started getting e-mails and phone calls requesting reservations.
Interest ____ increased when he told callers The Shed was “fully booked for the next six weeks.”
Even funnier, food suppliers started ____ The Shed’s address and sent him free samples, and many job applications came in.
These things ____ without Butler serving a single meal.
The Shed eventually became London’s number-one restaurant on one of the most trusted ____ review sites.
According to Butler, The Shed held that ____ for two weeks.
Butler’s story shows
Butler’s story shows that much of what we see on the Internet cannot ____ trusted.
This emphasizes the importance of ____ literacy.
Digital literacy is about more ____ just using computers.
It is the ability ____ use digital technology to find, evaluate, create, and communicate information.
To become digitally literate, we need to develop an attitude and ____ that enable us to detect false information online.
False information is any information that ____ or deceives people.
It ____ be about anything such as health, the environment, and economics across many platforms.
It can ____ influential, as The Shed incident shows.
If people had been digitally literate, they would not have been fooled by The Shed experiment so ____
Digitally literate people ____ have carefully considered information about The Shed without being distracted by other people’s reactions.
They would have been suspicious that the restaurant did not ____ an address.
They would have wondered why ____ on the restaurant did not appear in other more credible media.
If they had done these things, they would likely ____ suspected that something was not right.
Fortunately, The Shed incident was an experiment that caused ____ damage.
However, false information can cause ____ or financial harm to people.
For example, false information about a certain gender or belief ____ can stir up hatred against that group.
It can cause fights between those who support the group ____ those who do not.
In addition, misleading online reviews about questionable products often trick ____ into wasting money.
To avoid being deceived
To avoid being deceived by false information, we need to ____ a habit of critically evaluating what we see online.
If you see a story that looks too good or too bad to be true, check the ____ first.
Look at the ____ the story comes from.
Does it look ____ Are there spelling errors? Does it have other stories or just the one you read?
Check that the story contains ____ and links to other information.
Click on those links and see if the other ____ looks reliable.
Websites with false information often do not ____ many real stories about other topics.
They also often have lots of advertisements ____ pop up when you visit the sites.
You should ____ check the credibility of the content creator.
If a story has no writer’s name, this could be a sign ____ its content is questionable.
If there is a name, ____ out what and where the person has reported before.
If the person has not written anything else or writes for a website that looks unreliable, ____ twice before believing the content.
Finally, check who else is reporting the ____
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 see if ____ media are supporting the story.
Sorting through the vast amount of ____ created and shared online is challenging.
However, it is important that we know ____ false information is and how it spreads.
The better we recognize false ____ the better we will be at avoiding it and helping others do the same.