Fake News (Speaking Club)

Fake News

Kofi Annan (1938 – 2018), former Secretary General of the United Nations

“No single solution or actor can deal with the complex and interrelated challenges to electoral integrity arising from manipulated data, hate speech, and fake news. These phenomena are not new; they have been part of electoral cycles since the advent of democracy.”  

Discussion

1. What is fake news?
2. How do you know if the news you read is true?
3. Have you seen any fake news? What have you seen? What fake news has been spread in your country?
4. Why do people believe fake news?
5. Who is responsible for creating fake news? What is the purpose of fake news?
6. Can we believe anything in the news?
7. Why does fake news spread faster than real news?
8. What effect does fake news have on society?

Vocabulary

• confirmation bias (noun) – the tendency to favour any information that confirms a person’s existing beliefs, regardless of the veracity of the information.
• misinformation vs disinformation (nouns) – misinformation is information that is incorrect or misleading; disinformation is information that is deliberately misleading in order to manipulate people.
• post-truth politics (noun) – when facts and evidence are less influential than appealing to people’s emotions.
• propaganda (noun) – the use of information in support of a political cause; often accused of being misleading, biased, or false.
• satire (noun), satirical (adjective) – imitating something in order to ridicule it, usually for comedy purposes or to make a political statement.
• to factcheck (verb), fact-checker (noun) – to verify information, especially on the internet; someone, or a system, that checks facts online.

Drag and Drop

1. Facebook and Twitter introduced ​

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to flag up any posts deemed to contain incorrect or misleading information.

2. In the era of ​

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, supporters of Brexit continued to refer to a potential £350 million extra per week for the health service even after this figure was widely proven to be false.

3. Ofcom threw out hundreds of complaints against Channel 4’s alternative Christmas speech, which depicted a ‘deepfake’ Queen Elizabeth II joking about her family and dancing, saying it was clearly ​

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and no one would have believed it was real.

4. Due to ​

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, even when it is proved that information is false, people will continue to believe that it is true.

5. Ricky Vaughn, a social media troll, was charged with conspiring to disseminate ​

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with the intention of depriving people of their legal right to vote. His posts encouraged people to vote in the 2016 election by text or by social media posts, neither of which are legally valid ways of voting.

Drag these tiles and drop them in the correct blank above

fact-checker

post-truth politics

satirical

confirmation bias

disinformation

Vocabulary Comprehension Questions

1. Do you think you might be guilty of confirmation bias?
2. Have you seen any examples of misinformation or disinformation? 3. How can you explain the rise in post-truth politics?
4. What kind of political propaganda is used in your country?
5. What are some of your favourite satires?
6. How can you factcheck the information you see online? Do you always factcheck information before sharing it on social media?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q-Y-z6HmRgI&t=4s

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How to Choose Your News

Multiple Choice

How was the news a few decades ago?

• broad-based

• abloid-based

• board-based

Multiple Choice

The expansion of what made the problems with the media apparent?

• social media

• mass media

• broadcast media

Multiple Choice

What showed that democratic governments were misleading the public?

• the news

• scandals

• eaks

Multiple Choice

Who were alternative newspapers, radio shows and cable news competing with?

• the government

• each other

• large media companies

​Conversation Questions

1. What is the difference between fake news and an opinion?
2. Do you think people will believe anything just because it is written on the internet? If so, why is this?
3. Did fake news exist before social media? Can you think of any examples?
4. Why might someone say that real news is fake news?
5. Has fake news led to a distrust of the mainstream media? What is the effect of this on society?
6. Can the media be biased and still tell the truth?
7. What can be done to prevent the spread of fake news?
8. Should fake news be illegal? If so, how would this be enforced?