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Wednesday 14 September 2016

Fake news

There's umpteen fake news sites, ranging from the well-known Onion, all the way to ... well, that's the problem. How do you know if you're looking at fake news or real news?

And then someone on Facebook retweets the fake news article without realising it's fake, and suddenly everyone is up in arms about the Tory party cancelling the NHS.

Yes, I know that retweeting is a Twitter thing, but it's such a good word, I'm using it more generally.

Actually, I think that fake news sites perform a valuable service. They teach you not to believe everything you read on the internet. Or, indeed, everything you read in any medium. It teaches the valuable lesson of scepticism, the need for critical thinking, of the danger of faith (which is the polite word for gullibility).

It ain't necessarily so.

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