How to Detect Fake News in Election Period?

As you know, our agenda consisted of elections and politics. We see political leaders everywhere, even on social media, on TV, or walking down the street. However, especially in this period, what we see on social media can be misleading.
 How to Detect Fake News in Election Period?
READING NOW How to Detect Fake News in Election Period?

There are, of course, sweet little squabbles and provocations in politics. However, sometimes this situation can also cause disinformation examples that we see on social media. disinformation; In other words, distorting information in the literal sense is a method that is frequently used, especially when it comes to politics.

Of course, it is very difficult to filter everything we see in agendas that are prone to such information pollution. Because everyone has the internet and everyone can share everything they see. In order to confirm the accuracy of the information we see on the Internet and to learn the truth of it, it is enough to use the Internet again. Let’s start by correcting a few misinformation.

In the first round of the presidential elections, even when the voting process was just completed, we encountered false information. Allegedly, a record turnout of 93.6% was achieved in the election.

While voting or doing our duty at the ballot box, we all saw that the turnout was quite high. Therefore, none of us found it strange that there was a record level of participation.

However, YSK Chairman Ahmet Yener announced that the domestic participation rate was 88.92% and the international participation rate was 52.69%.

In the past days, we have seen a lot of cut identities thrown away, and this situation left question marks in mind.

It was not known by whom the identities were thrown away and why they were cut, and these identities even led to claims of “false votes” on social media.

Teyit.org, as a result of its research, revealed that a pharmacy employee threw away the identities and that these were the identities forgotten by the customers in the pharmacy. The fact that most of the identities are old strengthens the possibility that they may have been forgotten somewhere.

The first thing you need to do to make sure that the information you see is correct is to go to the ‘source’.

Before accepting an image or information you see as ‘correct’; It would be helpful to do a little internet search. Especially if the subject is an image you see; You can go to the source by using the “Image Search” button on Google.

Visual search will not be enough in news such as the cut identities we have mentioned above. Because despite being the source itself; The pharmacist who throws away the identities does not even know about this situation. For this reason, it is very important to be a little more patient and wait for official statements in such cases.

According to another claim, the votes cast for the deputies do not match the votes cast for the presidential candidates; was missing or excessive.

According to the claim made on social media; In cities such as Izmir and Istanbul, the votes cast for deputies were 100-200 thousand more than the presidential votes. The reason for this claim was due to the distribution of the votes cast from abroad. In other words, the number of votes cast was the same, only in some charts the votes cast abroad were also included in the charts.

To ensure the accuracy of the information, not the news sources you ‘love’; You can follow the sources whose objectivity you are sure of.

Lies or false information is often given in the same sentences in the media. For example; When the voter turnout spread as 93.6%, almost all local media presented this news in one sentence. However, information such as who disclosed this information and when it was disclosed was not included in the news.

If you have seen incomplete information in a news or if you have questions after reading the news, you may doubt the accuracy of the news.

We all know the 5W1K rule, but let’s remind those who don’t know: What, Where, When, Why, How and Who. These are the main questions a news story should answer. If the news you see cannot answer most of these questions; You may be right to be skeptical.

Of course, in some cases, the news may not be certain and some of the questions in 5W1K may be missing. However, in such a situation, checking different sources can help you get different information.

It’s also good to be patient.

All of us are constantly following the developments regarding the election and we share every new information we see with our friends and family. In other words, we are actually spreading knowledge from hand to hand. However, the dissemination of information that we are not sure about can have much bigger consequences.

False news creates an instant shock effect, causing you to share it with your friends.

People are more inclined to share news they react to or want to give. Let’s explain this with a short example.

Let’s say on the internet “The weather is beautiful in England today!” you saw a written post; Would you send this information to your friends? Most of us would probably skip this information and keep scrolling. However, if we saw a post that said “All countries will be entered without a passport”, let’s stop sending it to our friends; We would like to go out into the street and shout. This is exactly how fake news spreads on social media; by our willingness to project our joy, anger, hatred, or surprise on other people. In other words; because we acted on momentary emotions and pressed the “Share” button without thinking.

Please note that there is a disinformation law in our country and according to this law, it is a crime to spread false/misleading information on the internet. So think twice before posting anything or being really sure about the accuracy of information. Try to find out the source of the information, look for answers to the 5W1K, be suspicious of information that surprises you too much, follow the official sources and let’s all calm down a little more together. 🙂

You can also find information on how to distinguish fake news you see on the Internet in this content:

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