Fake or fact? Build your digital detection skills

From manipulated images to misleading social media posts, false information can spread quickly online. Learning how to recognise these tactics is now an essential digital literacy skill for study, work, and everyday life.

To help, the Library has launched a brand-new Being digital pathway, Spotting and Stopping False Information, designed to help you develop the critical skills needed to identify and challenge false or misleading information online.

This interactive pathway includes seven short activities exploring:

• why false and misleading information is a problem.
• techniques used in written disinformation on social media.
• how fake and manipulated images are created and shared.
• ways data can be presented misleadingly.
• how to stop the spread of false and misleading information.

Using misleading information about climate change as a real-world example, the pathway encourages you to think critically about the content you encounter online and gives you practical tools to evaluate information with greater confidence.

Being digital is free to use and open to students, staff, and the public. Written by OU librarians with expertise in information and knowledge management, it offers dozens of short, easy-to-follow activities on topics such as managing your digital identity, knowing what to trust online, and making the most of online networks.

Whether you’re researching for an assignment, teaching and sharing information with others, or simply navigating the online world day to day, the ability to critically evaluate information has never been more important. Get started on the Spotting and Stopping False Information pathway today.

Photo by charlesdeluvio on Unsplash