“on average, people are inclined to believe false news at least 20% of the time. “

The article “How Your Brain Tricks You Into Believing Fake News” by Katy Steinmetz gives us this quote that claims that upwards of 20% of the time, people believe the fake news that’s told. Obviously, this statement itself could be made up. Steinmetz does a great job in this article by giving us plenty of examples to look at not just online here in America, but in other places in the world that also suffer from Fake News. Steinmetz explains that we don’t just fall for this fake information because we’re dumb, but rather that we aren’t going to immediately fact-check everything we come across online. Steinmetz warns about trusting everything you read online and lists out some common reasons we might fall for fake news.

“Once you accept that, certain things become clear. Your methods of checking have to be really quick.”

The article “The ‘Always Check’ Approach to Online Literacy” by Mike Caulfield talks about some methods to quickly determine if a source is reliable or not, whether it’s a website or someone on Twitter making a “verified” claim. Caulfield shows us some of the methods for determining whether or not a website is reliable, and if it’s biased in its reporting. My question for this article is, at what point can we determine if something is “too biased” and therefore an unreliable source? No matter what we say, everyone has a bias, even reporters reporting on events. Caulfield helps us understand that news stations are going to be biased, as we have to look out for whatever narrative they might be pushing on us, the viewer.

“They will have to take initiative and also be willing to question their prejudices, to second-guess information they might like to believe. And relying on open-mindedness to defeat tribal tendencies has not proved a winning formula in past searches for truth.”

This quote by Steinmetz emphasizes how important it is to have an open mind when reading and discussing articles and other forms of information found online. The point that Steinmetz doesn’t make in this quote is how everyday people aren’t detectives, and aren’t going to do a background search on every little thing they hear online.