Thread by @mediawise

This morning, trusted news outlets confirmed that Russia attacked Ukraine. During any global crisis, you’ll see visceral images and videos on social media claiming to show bombing, tanks — military action. Now more than ever, you need to stop and ask @SHEG_Stanford’s 3 Q’s:

First, when you see a post like this one, ask yourself: Who shared it? Are they an expert? Are they biased toward one side of the conflict?

Go to their profile. Use quotes to search for exact matches for their name: “@WorldNewsWWIII”. The profile isn’t verified, and while it claims to be a news source — it’s been around for a month. DON’T SHARE.

Second, if you see an image like this circulating, REALLY dig into the post and find out if they’re offering any evidence. This post says “reportedly,” which is a very 🙄 way to make a claim. There’s no source cited for the image! No evidence? Play it safe and DON’T SHARE!

In fact, according to fact-checker @LeadStoriesCom, it’s actually a photo from an airshow — IN 1993! Old photos are often a source of misinformation during global crises, like what we are seeing during the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

PRO-TIP: When evaluating evidence, reverse image searching is your friend. You can easily debunk posts by pinpointing where and when an image REALLY came from.. Using a @bing image search, you can see lots of old Pinterest and Flickr images showing the same image.

Finally, before sharing ANYTHING look for trusted fact-checkers on the ground, such as @StopFakingNews and @voxukraine. Open more tabs and see what other sources are saying about the image, video or claim — this is called lateral reading.

Today is a dark day for the world. It will be particularly dark on social media. Don’t be passive — stop and verify any post you see before sharing. And please RT this thread to help your friends and family navigate the internet during the Russian invasion of Ukraine.