A rock with the message ‘Every Child Matters’ painted on it sits at a memorial outside the former Kamloops Indian Residential School, in Kamloops, B.C., in July 2021.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Darryl Dyck
Contrary to what some ‘denialists’ believe, research shows that Canadian media outlets did not help circulate a ‘mass grave hoax’ regarding unmarked graves at former Indian Residential Schools.
Most fact-checking focuses on social media, yet misinformation can also spread quickly through messaging apps like Whatsapp. Personalised push notifications – sent directly to your phone – could help.
A romance writer’s bizarre fake death has gone viral. That her being alive stayed undetected for 2.5 years reminds us that our online and published personas are still separate from real life.
Emotions can get in the way of knowing what’s true.
Elva Etienne/Moment via Getty Images
A true hoax provokes. It questions cultural biases, shattering conventions. But the curious case of the three men writing as a female author Carmen Mola does none of this.
The flood of information can be overwhelming.
Rudzhan Nagiev/iStock/Getty Images Plus
The QAnon conspiracy movement is the latest in a long line of moral panics that emerge as a response to change. False theories are used to undermine claims to social justice raised by marginalized groups.
A sign outside Lions Gate Hospital in North Vancouver, B.C., explains visitor restrictions to limit the spread of the novel coronavirus COVID-19.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Darryl Dyck
Hospitals have requested that people avoid non-emergency visits, and conspiracy theorists are posting images of empty parking lots online as false proof that COVID-19 is an elaborate hoax.
FOX News host Sean Hannity (pictured here in 2018) gave credibility to a tweet he read out lout on his popular syndicated radio show, which called COVID-19 a fraud “to spread panic in the populace, manipulate the economy and suppress dissent.”
AP/Julie Jacobson
Why have conspiracy theories so easily circulated during the COVID-19 pandemic? What do these theories tell us about societies and what challenges do they present?
The Voynich Manuscript has researchers, the media, and the public hooked. But pseudo-explanations for the book’s ‘code’ reveals a serious problem with society’s relationship with science.
Wellness ‘gurus’ like Belle Gibson (not pictured here) have changed the way we think about our own health.
Budimir Jevtic/Shutterstock
Research in Indonesia shows that people’s age, education levels and gender do not determine their likelihood to share fake news. Internet spending does.
Dozens of voluntary researchers in nine Indonesian cities mapped digital literacy activities and they found the country needs much more to solve their digital media problems.
When new discoveries are jealously guarded under lock and key, science suffers.
Andy Wright
Researcher who has studied online news for 20 years says people fall for fake news because they don’t value journalistic sources and consider themselves and their friends as credible news sources.