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COMMENT | So much has changed in data driven politics especially in an election year. Information is increasingly being ‘weaponised’, to influence voter behaviour. For instance the exposure of data analytics firm, Cambridge Analytica, by London-based Channel 4 for harvesting Facebook user profiles to target voters with selective political advertisements.

Analytica’s now suspended CEO, Alexander Nix, admitted, “It sounds a dreadful thing to say, but these are things that don’t necessarily need to be true, as long as they’re believed.”

Indeed, believability trumps facts on social media, where everyone’s a publisher. The deluge of news - and disinformation - into your mobile device and computer should thus give you thought to resist the impulse to re-tweet or re-post what you think is ‘true’. If it’s too outrageous or too good to be true, it probably is. Your ‘truth’ feelers should prompt you to check it out.

I wrote in my last article that you ought to take control of what you read, do the legwork of fact-checking even as you know that over-relying on one news outlet results in a one-dimensional view.

A useful reference on fact-checking is the International Fact-Checking Network at Poynter Institute, which publishes guidelines, serial articles and updates on fact-checking initiatives. The University of South Australia library has also curated fact-checking sites and plug-ins for free public access. KiniGuide also provides tips and resources on how to sieve real news from the dross online.

What has come to be called ‘fake news’ is easy to know when it’s published deliberately by satirical sites. It is trickier to detect when misinformation is packaged with visuals and headlines to look and feel like legitimate media sites.

A prominent feature of misinformation – particularly of polarising issues like same sex marriage, racism, religious extremism, gun controls - is the outright appeal to your emotions, and laced with polemics from unnamed ‘reliable’ sources.

‘Fake news’ is persuasive because it works on the principle that what someone did or said, you may forget; but how that someone made you feel, you will remember. That’s what political advertisements set out to do...

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