Online information: Can I trust it?

Whether watching videos, chatting with friends, reading the news or playing games, you come across information online every day. This information can impact thoughts, feelings, beliefs and behaviour.  

Some things you see online can influence you in a positive way. For example, watching a video that teaches you how to dance, cook or develop one of your interests might make you feel inspired.

Other things you see online can influence you in a negative way. For example,  seeing an upsetting news story might make you sad.

Not everything you see online is true, safe or what it looks like. Some things may make you feel confused, upset or angry.

That’s why it is important to be ‘critically aware’ of information online.

Being critically aware online means pausing to think about what you see online, asking questions like: “how does this make me feel?”, “Is this true?”, “Who posted this?”, and “Should I believe it?”.

Online you might come across content that is:

Fake news. This means information that is not true (or made up). Fake news is often shared online to make people believe it.

Misinformation. This means information that is not true and is shared by mistake because the person doesn’t know it is not true.

Disinformation. This means information that is not true and is shared on purpose to trick people.

AI content. This means anything that has been created or changed using Artificial Intelligence. This might be text, photos, videos or audio. AI can create realistic content, making it difficult to tell if it is real.

How to be critically aware of online information

Here are 3 things you can do:

1. Assess it. Think about why the person might be sharing it - are they trying to make people angry or argue to get more interactions on their post? Are they being paid for it? (you may see #Ad or ‘paid for promotion’). Think about if it is realistic – does it look edited? Is it too good or shocking to be true?
2. Check it. Look at another website or source of information that you know and trust to see if it backs up what you’ve read or seen. To check fake news, you may want to use a fact checker, like Full Fact. 
3. Take action. For posts you don’t like or trust, help train your online algorithm (how apps and website learn what you like and show you more of) by clicking ‘not interested’ or ‘see less of’ where possible.
   
   Speak to an adult you trust to help you think about what you have seen and any impact it may have had on you.
   
   Report harmful content directly to the app or platform (find help on reporting harmful content).

It is also important to be critically aware of people you meet online. Just like online information, people can influence how you feel, behave or what you believe.

It is easy for people online to hide who they really are and pretend to be someone else. People who do this are sometimes called ‘catfish’. Learn more about spotting fake profiles or ‘catfish’.