Four Questions to Ask Before You Believe Something
Anyone can put anything on a screen. Here is the short checklist that professional fact-checkers actually use.
You will meet more information today than your great-grandparents met in a month. Most of it is fine. Some of it is wrong. A little of it is wrong on purpose. Telling them apart is a skill, and like most skills it comes down to asking a few good questions.
1. Who is saying this?
Not the account that shared it — the original source. A screenshot has no author. Try to get back to where the claim actually started. If you cannot find the source at all, that itself is information.
2. How would they know?
A claim about a school comes best from the school. A claim about an experiment comes best from the people who ran it. Ask what position someone was in to know the thing they are telling you.
3. Does anyone else say the same?
Open a second source that is genuinely independent — not four accounts all copying the same post. If a striking claim appears in exactly one place, wait.
4. How does it want me to feel?
Information designed to make you furious or frightened in the first three seconds is worth slowing down for. Strong feelings are the fastest route past careful thinking, and people who want to mislead know it.