Welcome to understanding election misinformation.
This page is designed to give you tools to recognize and prevent yourself from falling into misinformation traps during the 2024 election cycle.
Information that is misleading, erroneous or false. Misinformation is generally shared and sometimes created by people who are unaware that it’s inaccurate. This is the best term to use when the intent of the creator or sharer is unknown.
Source: News Literacy Project in brief misinformation
1. Politifact
PolitiFact started in 2007 as an election-year project of the Tampa Bay Times (then named the St. Petersburg Times), Florida’s largest daily newspaper. Check out their ABOUT US section to see their process and how they deal with corrections and updates.
A project of the Annenberg Public Policy Center, FactCheck.org monitors the factual accuracy of what is said by major U.S. political players in the form of TV ads, debates, speeches, interviews and news releases. Our goal is to apply the best practices of both journalism and scholarship, and to increase public knowledge and understanding.
Check out their ABOUT US section to see their process and how they deal with corrections.
3. Open Secrets
Their mission states that they the nation's premier research group tracking money in U.S. politics and its effect on elections and public policy. Our mission is to track the flow of money in American politics and provide the data and analysis to strengthen democracy. Check out their ABOUT page to see how they gather their information.
Sources spreading misinformation will often edit a real image, video, or audio clip to change its original meaning and intention.
If you see something that evokes an emotional response or is made to ridicule, check with other reputable sources to ensure that you are getting the whole story.
Sources spreading misinformation will sometimes completely create false information through a made up image, video, or audio clip.
Check to make sure what you are seeing, listening or reading about is accurate by checking with a variety of news sources. If they are not reporting the same thing, it's likely a fake.
If you see something that seems outlandish or upsetting, it could have been manipulated. Use reverse image on Google or fact checking sites to see if it has been debunked.
For more information check out these sources:
News Literacy Misinformation Dashboard: Election Dashboard and RumorGuard from the News Literacy Project