向假新闻开战，你准备好了吗？

向假新闻开战，你准备好了吗？

科技的发展使得我们获取资讯更为快捷，可是这也助长了虚假消息的传播，它们开始入侵我们生活的方方面面。在信息混杂的这个时代，我们比以往更希望青年人拥有明辨真伪的能力。

测试中可能遇到的词汇和知识：

propaganda宣传[prɒpə'gændə]

subjugation征服；镇压[,sʌbdʒʊ'ɡeɪʃən]

intrude into|侵入intrigued|好奇的[ɪn'triɡd]

fabricated组合的；伪造的['fæbrɪ,ket]

revamp改进[riː'væmp]

insidious隐伏的[ɪn'sɪdɪəs]

conspiracy阴谋；共谋[kən'spɪrəsɪ]

Taking the fight against fake news to the classroom（706 words）

By RoulaKhalaf

We may like to think otherwise but fake news is not a new trick. In the old days, we referred to it simply as propaganda, one of the many tools of subjugation used by authoritarian regimes. What has changed in the digital age is the ease with which fake news can spread, and its range.

You no longer have to live in a repressed society to be a victim of misinformation. It can intrude into your home and into your smartphone, play with your mind and muddle your reality. It doesn't always need Machiavellian spooks to make it up or twisted schemes to embed it into the collective consciousness. It can be created by a bored youth in a bar or terrorists on the battlefield.

Which is why our defences against fake news can no longer be confined to encouraging people to listen to the BBC, as it once often was. Now societies have to develop ways of immunising young minds. That's where education comes in.

I was intrigued to learn of a new initiative by journalists from Le Monde, the French daily that has developed a readers' tool to weed out fake news. A few weeks ago, they started volunteering at schools, teaching teenagers how to distinguish between responsible journalism and fabricated news. Other newsrooms in France are doing the same.

Alexandre Pouchard, one of the Le Monde journalists involved, tells me the objective is to raise awareness about sourcing and promote simple tools (such as Google reverse image search) to check the origin of photographs or memes. “It's about getting some reflexes, like wondering where a story or image is from,” he says. “On the one hand, young people are more vulnerable to this phenomenon and less used to identifying unreliable sources and, on the other hand, they are not our usual readers, so we have to get in touch with them.”

The French, of course, feel particularly exposed during this presidential election. A leading candidate, Emmanuel Macron, has accused Russia and its news outlets of hacking, and of spreading false stories.

The extent to which fake news swayed voter preferences in the US, however, is arguable. A new study by Hunt Allcott of New York University and Matthew Gentzkow of Stanford University concludes that social media was not the most important source of US presidential election news, and that the most widely circulated fake news stories were seen by only a small fraction of Americans. But according to a Pew Research poll, 88 per cent of Americans felt that fake news contributed to confusion over facts. “There could be an indirect effect,” argues Tom Boll, an instructor at Syracuse University's Newhouse school of journalism. “I wouldn't say that fake news would necessarily have to change a person's mind or vote to be effective. If it fires up the base to be more involved or definitely go out and vote, that would be an effect. And if someone is leaning one way and this cements their belief, that could be an effect.”

The US debate about fake news is well advanced, and more heated than in Europe. Many US schools are teaching students about credible sourcing on social media. In California, a Democratic lawmaker has introduced a bill in the state senate to include digital literacy into the school curriculum.

Mr Boll argues that a literacy effort that warns against falling for fake news should become part of a civics course and every citizen should take it. “I'd want (students') brains and minds to be a fact-checking tool.”

That may be what the OECD has in mind with the revamp of its Pisa test, which compiles global rankings of national school systems, to assess online skills. A new reading element will in future take into account how pupils deal with the digital environment and online documents.

Fake news may not have won Donald Trump the White House. It has, however, stimulated much-needed action over its insidious influence. Once upon a time, dictatorships targeted young minds with manipulated tales in history books and daily songs in praise of the leader. Now propaganda and conspiracy theories are beamed into many more minds through their social media feeds. The earlier youngsters learn to fight it, the better.