Fact-Check That Viral Image In Two Clicks

Fact-Check That Viral Image In Two Clicks

Major news events such as Hurricane Harvey produce thousands of photos, and thousands more tweets and Facebook posts of fake, outdated or out-of-context photos. This time the big winner is a photoshop of a shark on the freeway which pops up during every major hurricane.

Photoshop by basscat dad

Before you join the 68,000+ people who retweeted that fake photo, just spend two clicks fact-checking it. Right-click the image, then click “Search Google for Image”. And boom, you see if there’s a source or 10 blog posts debunking it. BuzzFeed reporter Jane Lytvynenko breaks it down into baby steps:

And here’s the slightly longer process on mobile:

It’s a pain, but if you don’t do this, you’ll have to admit you’re more interested in attention than you are in the truth. And when all your followers see you fall for a hoax, they will unfollow you for being a dummy.

But you’re not a dummy and you’re not attention-starved, so you’ll fact-check before you retweet, and no fake image will ever go viral again!

Meanwhile, follow the Washington Post‘s running list of Hurricane Harvey hoaxes.


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