Snopes.com
The original Urban Legends Reference Pages, is a website covering urban legends, Internet rumors, e-mail forwards, and other stories of unknown or questionable origin. It is a well-known resource for validating and debunking such stories in American popular culture, receiving 300,000 visits a day.
FactCheck.org
FactCheck.org is a nonprofit website that describes itself as a non-partisan "'consumer advocate' for voters that aims to reduce the level of deception and confusion in U.S. politics". It is a project of the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania, and is funded primarily by the Annenberg Foundation.
Real or Satire?
Type in (or paste) a URL (web address), and this site will tell you if it is legitimate or not.
Topeka & Shawnee County Public Library has published a page on spotting fake news: https://tscpl.org/news/how-to-spot-fake-news
Here is a well-written, thoughtful article from Christianity Today about spotting fake news sites.
A Washington Post story (4/15/15?): "The story behind Jar’Edo Wens, the longest-running hoax in Wikipedia history"
Another set of criteria is the CRAAP test
[See the LibGuide page on Fake News - Librarians at Work for more information.]
Courtesy of RADCAB.com
[Note clicking on the words in the left column will take you to the RADCAB page for that criterion.]
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Is the information relevant to the question at hand? Am I on the right track? |
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Is the information suitable to my age and core values? |
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How much information do I need? Is the depth of coverage adequate? |
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When was the information published or last updated? |
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Who is the author of the information? What are his or her qualifications? |
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Why was this information written? Was it written to inform me, persuade me, entertain me, or sell me something? |
Here is a collection of hoaxes:
These are both on the internet, and prior to its existence.