Before you share

About this video

A post appears on Jonas's phone: a picture of a huge wave crashing over a city and the words "TSUNAMI hits the coast today! Share before it's deleted!" It already has 50,000 shares, and his thumb moves to the share button. Should he press it?

Posts, messages and videos travel fast, and anyone can make one. Some are true, some are mistakes and some are made up to be shared. Being shared 50,000 times doesn't make a post true: 50,000 people sharing one post is still one source. So before believing a post, ask four questions. Who made it - a known news service, the weather office, or an account nobody knows? "Share before it's deleted" is a sign that someone wants you to hurry instead of think. When was it made? Old news is often shared as new. Is the picture really from this? Pictures are easy to move from one event to another; this one turns out to be a still from a film. And does anyone else say so? A real tsunami would be on every news site, with warnings from the weather office.

The habit behind the last question is to leave the post and look somewhere else, because reading it again only tells you what it wants to. Jonas checks: the weather office says the sea is calm, and no news site mentions a tsunami. He doesn't share it. This video goes with the Checking What You Read lesson of Knowledge Level 1 on Knaph.

Transcript

1. 0:00Tsunami hits the coast! Share before it's deleted! Fifty thousand shares. Share it?
2. 0:05Who made it? An account nobody knows. When was it made? Old news looks new.
3. 0:11Is the picture really from this? Searched, it turns out to be from a film.
4. 0:17Does anyone else say so? Leave the post and look somewhere else.
5. 0:23The weather office says the sea is calm. No news site mentions it.
6. 0:29A real event is reported by many reliable sources.