{"id":43,"date":"2018-01-22T20:00:01","date_gmt":"2018-01-22T20:00:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/suny-webliteracy\/chapter\/tracking-the-source-of-viral-content\/"},"modified":"2018-01-22T20:00:01","modified_gmt":"2018-01-22T20:00:01","slug":"tracking-the-source-of-viral-content","status":"publish","type":"chapter","link":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/suny-webliteracy\/chapter\/tracking-the-source-of-viral-content\/","title":{"raw":"Tracking the Source of Viral Content","rendered":"Tracking the Source of Viral Content"},"content":{"raw":"

In the examples we\u2019ve seen so far, it\u2019s been straightforward to find the source of the content. The Blaze<\/em> story, for example, clearly links to the Daily Dot<\/em> piece so that anyone reading their summary is one click away from confirming it with the source. The New York Times<\/em> makes apparent that the syndicated content is from the Associated Press; if you wanted to check the credibility of the source you could easily do that.\n\nThis is good internet citizenship. Articles on the web that repurpose other information or artifacts should state their sources , and, if appropriate, link to them. This matters to creators, because they deserve credit for their work. But it also matters to readers who need to check the credibility of the original sources.\n\nUnfortunately, many actors on the web are not good citizens. This is particularly true with so-called \u201cviral\u201d content -- material that spreads very quickly as hundreds or thousands of people share it. .\n\nWhen that information travels around a network, people often fail to link to sources, or hide them altogether. For example, here is an interesting claim that two million bikers are going to show up for President-elect Trump\u2019s inauguration. Whatever your political persuasion, that would be a pretty amazing thing to see.\n\nBut the source of the information -- Right Alerts Polls<\/em> -- is not linked.\n\n\"An\n\nHere\u2019s where we show our first trick. Using the Chrome web browser, select the text \u201cRight Alerts Polls\u201d. Then right-click your mouse (control-click on a Mac), and choose the option to search Google for the highlighted phrase.\n\n\"Screenshot\n\nIt will execute a search for \u201cRight Alerts Polls\u201d. (Remember this right-click action -- it\u2019s going to be the foundation of a lot of stuff we do.)\n\nTo find the story, add \u201cbikers\u201d to the end of the search:\n\n\"A\n\nWe find our upstream article right at the top. Clicking through, however, we find that this article doesn\u2019t tell us where the information is coming from either. However, it does have an extended quote from one of the Two Million Bikers organizers:\n\n\"The\n\nSo we just repeat our technique here, and select a bit of text from the quote and right-click\/control-click. What we want is to figure out where this quote came from, and searching on this small but unique piece of it should bring it close to the top of the Google results.\n\n\"Screenshot\n\nWhen we do that we see that there are dozens of articles covering this story, using the the same quote and sometimes even the same headline. But one of those results is the actual Facebook page for the event, and if we want a sense of how many people are committing, then this is a place to start.\n\n\"The\n\nThis also introduces us to another helpful practice -- when scanning Google results (or Bing results, or DuckDuckGo results) novices scan the titles. Pros scan the URLs beneath the titles, looking for clues as to which sources are best. (Be a pro!)\n\nSo we go to the Two Million Biker Facebook event page, and take a look. How close are they to getting two million bikers to commit to this?\n\n\"Facebook\n\nWell...it looks like about 1,800. That\u2019s nothing to sneer at -- organizing is hard, and people have lives to attend to. Getting people to give up time for political activity is tough. But it\u2019s pretty short of the \u201ctwo million bikers\u201d most of these articles were telling us were going to show up.\n\nWhen we get into how to rate articles on the DigiPo site as true or false, likely or unlikely, we\u2019ll talk a bit about how to write up the evaluation of this claim. Our sense is the rating here is either \u201cMostly False\u201d or \u201cUnlikely\u201d \u2014 there are people planning to go, that\u2019s true, but the importance of the story was based around the scale of attendance, and all indications seem to be that attendance is shaping up to be about a tenth of one percent (0.1%) of what the other articles promised.\n\nImportantly, we would have learned none of this had we decided to evaluate the original page. We learned this by going upstream.<\/p>","rendered":"

In the examples we\u2019ve seen so far, it\u2019s been straightforward to find the source of the content. The Blaze<\/em> story, for example, clearly links to the Daily Dot<\/em> piece so that anyone reading their summary is one click away from confirming it with the source. The New York Times<\/em> makes apparent that the syndicated content is from the Associated Press; if you wanted to check the credibility of the source you could easily do that.<\/p>\n

This is good internet citizenship. Articles on the web that repurpose other information or artifacts should state their sources , and, if appropriate, link to them. This matters to creators, because they deserve credit for their work. But it also matters to readers who need to check the credibility of the original sources.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, many actors on the web are not good citizens. This is particularly true with so-called \u201cviral\u201d content — material that spreads very quickly as hundreds or thousands of people share it. .<\/p>\n

When that information travels around a network, people often fail to link to sources, or hide them altogether. For example, here is an interesting claim that two million bikers are going to show up for President-elect Trump\u2019s inauguration. Whatever your political persuasion, that would be a pretty amazing thing to see.<\/p>\n

But the source of the information — Right Alerts Polls<\/em> — is not linked.<\/p>\n

\"An<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s where we show our first trick. Using the Chrome web browser, select the text \u201cRight Alerts Polls\u201d. Then right-click your mouse (control-click on a Mac), and choose the option to search Google for the highlighted phrase.<\/p>\n

\"Screenshot<\/p>\n

It will execute a search for \u201cRight Alerts Polls\u201d. (Remember this right-click action — it\u2019s going to be the foundation of a lot of stuff we do.)<\/p>\n

To find the story, add \u201cbikers\u201d to the end of the search:<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

We find our upstream article right at the top. Clicking through, however, we find that this article doesn\u2019t tell us where the information is coming from either. However, it does have an extended quote from one of the Two Million Bikers organizers:<\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

So we just repeat our technique here, and select a bit of text from the quote and right-click\/control-click. What we want is to figure out where this quote came from, and searching on this small but unique piece of it should bring it close to the top of the Google results.<\/p>\n

\"Screenshot<\/p>\n

When we do that we see that there are dozens of articles covering this story, using the the same quote and sometimes even the same headline. But one of those results is the actual Facebook page for the event, and if we want a sense of how many people are committing, then this is a place to start.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

This also introduces us to another helpful practice — when scanning Google results (or Bing results, or DuckDuckGo results) novices scan the titles. Pros scan the URLs beneath the titles, looking for clues as to which sources are best. (Be a pro!)<\/p>\n

So we go to the Two Million Biker Facebook event page, and take a look. How close are they to getting two million bikers to commit to this?<\/p>\n

\"Facebook<\/p>\n

Well…it looks like about 1,800. That\u2019s nothing to sneer at — organizing is hard, and people have lives to attend to. Getting people to give up time for political activity is tough. But it\u2019s pretty short of the \u201ctwo million bikers\u201d most of these articles were telling us were going to show up.<\/p>\n

When we get into how to rate articles on the DigiPo site as true or false, likely or unlikely, we\u2019ll talk a bit about how to write up the evaluation of this claim. Our sense is the rating here is either \u201cMostly False\u201d or \u201cUnlikely\u201d \u2014 there are people planning to go, that\u2019s true, but the importance of the story was based around the scale of attendance, and all indications seem to be that attendance is shaping up to be about a tenth of one percent (0.1%) of what the other articles promised.<\/p>\n

Importantly, we would have learned none of this had we decided to evaluate the original page. We learned this by going upstream.<\/p>\n\n\t\t\t

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Candela Citations<\/h3>\n\t\t\t\t\t
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CC licensed content, Shared previously<\/div>