Only professionals recognize fake news? Wrong, you can do that too!
Many fake news can be debunked using simple methods and little effort - and anyone can do it!
Admittedly, there are some false claims that can only be refuted with a lot of effort, for example by dealing with entire scientific studies or making inquiries to authorities, companies and experts, but a large part of the fake news that we come across again and again can be easily refuted.
And you really don’t have to be an expert to do this!
Note: The enemy of all fake news is media literacy !
Tips from the Mimikama team
1. Skepticism
No matter what message flashed onto your Facebook timeline or sent to you on WhatsApp: skepticism is always the first hurdle. Is a report or article presented in a sensational way? Does the content serve a specific group, such as anti-immigrants or animal lovers? Is an article more of an opinion? If keywords are used that are often in quotation marks, for example “ The so-called “vaccination” is only there…. “ or “ The plandemic shows….. ”? It is particularly clear from vilified words that an article wants to convey an opinion and is less interested in facts.
2. The source
Many articles appear, at least on the surface, to be somewhat serious, so that they seem quite credible, but eloquence is no substitute for facts!
It is then worth not just looking at this one article on a site, but also getting an overview of the other articles. You can often see that a site, for example, only reports on a few topics and that these always sound negative, for example only directed against certain parties or only reporting against a certain topic.
This is not the only distinguishing feature, as many pages only have a few topics and are directed against various companies, for example pages of environmental protection organizations. This point alone does not indicate fake news; other distinguishing features are also important. It is also often worth taking a look at the imprint of a site.
Is it even there? If yes: Are the names and addresses of the creators of a page given? Many fake news spreaders write in German, but are based abroad, often with a PO box address to protect themselves from prosecution. Especially when it comes to very bizarre reports, it's worth taking a look at the imprint, as it is usually noted there that it is a purely satirical site or a site where everyone can write their own messages.
3. Other sources
Evidence has emerged that Adolf Hitler was cloned, but only this one site reports it?
Then you can be sure that it is fake news, because a lot more media pounce on really sensational news! Sometimes you can also find more sources for a claim - but they are often exactly the same wording, because fake news media often only copy the message from one side and refer to the source at the end. We often get inquiries as to whether a particular, prominent person has really died, and Google is really the easiest tool! Especially when a celebrity dies, a lot of reputable media reports about it. For example, dubious sites repeatedly report that Hillary Clinton was executed or Bill Gates was arrested, but then not only these individual sites but pretty much every press organ would report about it!
4. Do the images match the message?
A picture says more than 1,000 words?
Unfortunately not always, because images are often misused to create fake news! This is because often not entire articles are distributed, but simply sharepics that convey fake news. A well-known example from 2021 is the alleged nude photo of Annalena Baerbock. The photo was not manipulated, but does not show Ms. Baerbock at a young age, but another woman who only vaguely resembles the politician ( we reported ). A simple reverse image search helped us (we explain how to do this HERE ).
You can check videos really professionally with the InVID Verification Plugin for Firefox and Chrome, because the plugin breaks videos down into individual images, which you can then search on Google to find the original source of a video.
This is a little more time consuming, but often worth it! For example, a certain Bernd Klein, who is better known by a stage name with a doctorate, distributed a video that was supposed to prove that the heads of vaccinated people explode. Apparently not only we, but also other people used InVID tools, because the article with the video, which showed a completely different situation, was deleted again before we could write an article about it.
5. Hoaxsearch – Our search engine for fakes
We've been reporting on fakes and hoaxes for almost 11 years now, and a lot has accumulated!
Experience has shown that many false claims and nonsensical chain letters are repeated again and again, so we have already written articles on many topics. In order to find articles on a specific topic more quickly, we https://www.hoaxsearch.com/ . This allows you to search for specific topics and keywords and find the relevant articles straight away.

Let's summarize
- Since basically anyone can write whatever they want on the Internet, skepticism appropriate
- The reliability of the source is also an important factor: If a source has often spread fake news, you should not blindly trust the truth of a current report
- If only a few or only one source reports something, there is also a need for mistrust, because other sources would then also report on a situation that is worthy of “breaking news”.
- Images and text must fit together, because often an image or video does not show what is claimed in the text
- A search with fact checkers often helps, be it our Hoaxsearch or our colleagues at dpa , AFP , Tagesschau , Correctiv or Snopes . And no, we're not all in this together, but we're all pulling in the same direction: fighting fake news!
So you can see that you don't necessarily have to have specialist knowledge to be able to recognize fake news, but it is enough if you acquire some basics of media literacy. Then don't let dubious chain letters on Facebook and WhatsApp or overly sensationalistic claims lead you into virtual black ice!
Source: DW German
Also interesting:
The state center for political education in North Rhine-Westphalia has published an online game in which you can uncover fake news in a playful way > Learn to recognize fake news by playing in the online game
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Notes:
1) This content reflects the current state of affairs at the time of publication. The reproduction of individual images, screenshots, embeds or video sequences serves to discuss the topic. 2) Individual contributions were created through the use of machine assistance and were carefully checked by the Mimikama editorial team before publication. ( Reason )

