MyPE

Community Business Directory, Event Listings, News and Views from Gqeberha, Nelson Mandela Bay

Advice on how to spot FAKE NEWS

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Inspired by the latest sharing of Fake News masquerading as satire

I was recently sent an image via WhatsApp which showed an image of South African Minister of Education, Angie Motshekga with the title; “Our foods doesn’t come from farms. It mostly comes from Shoprite, Spar, Checkers” and comment; “And this is from the Minister of Education who wants to re-open school [sic]”.

Read the original article and my message to the Darwin Award Candidates here: Our foods doesn’t come from farms. It mostly comes from Shoprite, Spar, Checkers.

Anyway – one of the ways that you can see if an article is entirely TRUE or not is to search for an exact match of a statement in your favourite Search Engine – as I illustrate below:

Our foods doesn't come from farms. It mostly comes from Shoprite, Spar, Checkers
Fake ‘Satiristic’ News article

Warning Sign Number One: You will see from the first image above that the article is ONLY on the first page of results for THE SA Vine website and a number of Facebook pages – NOT for any of the accepted mainstream media web sites.

Warning Sign Number Two: Spelling and Grammar is not correct – most articles published in newspapers go through a vigorous fact checking process, first by the journalist, then by a sub-editor and maybe even by the editor, also a title sub-editor and photo caption editor will have sight of the proposed article before publication.

Warning Sign Number Three: Check the date – if the date is from 24 hours ago and NO OTHER news or opinion web site has reported on the exact match for the alleged statement made then the article referenced has a high probability of being fake news.

As an illustration of the exact match technique look at the Google screenshot below from less than 10 minutes after MyPE published a rebuttal on behalf of Angie Motshekga. You will see MyPE at number two in the rankings for the rebuttal article (higher than Facebook):

Our foods doesn't come from farms. It mostly comes from Shoprite, Spar, Checkers
MyPE Rebuttal at Number 2 in Google – Les sthan 10 Minutes of being published on www.MyPE.co.za

By the way: MyPE’s rebuttal article took under 10 minutes to make it to Number Two in Google’s Index – indicative of the trust that Search Engines place in www.MyPE.co.za.

IF ALL ELSE FAILS – contact MyPE and ask us to fact check the article you want to share.

THIS is the Tweet I sent to Angie and her Communications Aide as a heads up: You can thank me later @ElijahMhlanga @angie_motshekga http://mype.co.za/new/our-foods-doesnt-come-from-farms-it-mostly-comes-from-shoprite-spar-checkers/133413/2020/05/

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Alan Straton

Chief Cook, Bottle Washer and Broom Mechanic at MyPE
Passionate about Port Elizabeth and definitely NOT packing for Perth. Alan's ethos is epitomised in the words of Nelson Mandela; "I have fought against white domination and I have fought against black domination. I have cherished the idea of a democratic and free society. If need be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die." See more articles by Alan.