The first move is the simplest. STOP reminds you of two things.
First, when you first hit a page or post and start to read it — STOP. Ask yourself whether you know the website or source of the information, and what the reputation of both the claim and the website is. If you don’t have that information, use the other moves to get a sense of what you’re looking at. Don’t read it or share media until you know what it is.
Second, after you begin to use the other moves it can be easy to go down a rabbit hole, going off on tangents only distantly related to your original task. If you feel yourself getting overwhelmed in your fact-checking efforts, STOP and take a second to remember your purpose. If you just want to repost, read an interesting story, or get a high-level explanation of a concept, it’s probably good enough to find out whether the publication is reputable. If you are doing deep research of your own, you may want to chase down individual claims in a newspaper article and independently verify them.
Please keep in mind that both sorts of investigations are equally useful. Quick and shallow investigations will form most of what we do on the web. We get quicker with the simple stuff in part so we can spend more time on the stuff that matters to us. But in either case, stopping periodically and reevaluating our reaction or search strategy is key.
We’ll go into this move more on the next page. But idea here is that you want to know what you’re reading before you read it.
Now, you don’t have to do a Pulitzer prize-winning investigation into a source before you engage with it. But if you’re reading a piece on economics by a Nobel prize-winning economist, you should know that before you read it. Conversely, if you’re watching a video on the many benefits of milk consumption that was put out by the dairy industry, you want to know that as well.
This doesn’t mean the Nobel economist will always be right and that the dairy industry can’t be trusted. But knowing the expertise and agenda of the source is crucial to your interpretation of what they say. Taking sixty seconds to figure out where media is from before reading will help you decide if it is worth your time, and if it is, help you to better understand its significance and trustworthiness.
Sometimes you don’t care about the particular article or video that reaches you. You care about the claim the article is making. You want to know if it is true or false. You want to know if it represents a consensus viewpoint, or if it is the subject of much disagreement.
In this case, your best strategy may be to ignore the source that reached you, and look for trusted reporting or analysis on the claim. If you get an article that says koalas have just been declared extinct from the Save the Koalas Foundation, your best bet might not be to investigate the source, but to go out and find the best source you can on this topic, or, just as importantly, to scan multiple sources and see what the expert consensus seems to be. In these cases we encourage you to “find other coverage” that better suits your needs — more trusted, more in-depth, or maybe just more varied. In lesson two we’ll show you some techniques to do this sort of thing very quickly.
Do you have to agree with the consensus once you find it? Absolutely not! But understanding the context and history of a claim will help you better evaluate it and form a starting point for future investigation.
Much of what we find on the internet has been stripped of context. Maybe there’s a video of a fight between two people with Person A as the aggressor. But what happened before that? What was clipped out of the video and what stayed in? Maybe there’s a picture that seems real but the caption could be misleading. Maybe a claim is made about a new medical treatment based on a research finding — but you’re not certain if the cited research paper really said that.
In these cases we’ll have you trace the claim, quote, or media back to the source, so you can see it in it’s original context and get a sense if the version you saw was accurately presented.
There’s a theme that runs through all of these moves: they are about reconstructing the necessary context to read, view, or listen to digital content effectively.
One piece of context is who the speaker or publisher is. What’s their expertise? What’s their agenda? What’s their record of fairness or accuracy? So we investigate the source. Just as when you hear a rumor you want to know who the source is before reacting, when you encounter something on the web you need the same sort of context.
When it comes to claims, a key piece of context includes whether they are broadly accepted or rejected or something in-between. By scanning for other coverage you can see what the expert consensus is on a claim, learn the history around it, and ultimately land on a better source.
Finally, when evidence is presented with a certain frame — whether a quote or a video or a scientific finding — sometimes it helps to reconstruct the original context in which the photo was taken or research claim was made. It can look quite different in context!
In some cases these techniques will show you claims are outright wrong, or that sources are legitimately “bad actors” who are trying to deceive you. But in the vast majority of cases they do something just as important: they reestablish the context that the web so often strips away, allowing for more fruitful engagement with all digital information.
To learn about SIFT in more detail, there is a three hour online minicourse.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Text and image courtesy of Mike Caulfield: https://hapgood.us/2019/06/19/sift-the-four-moves/
In this video, University of Washington research scientist Mike Caulfield illustrates the importance of evaluating sources through lateral reading. Caulfield suggests that, when using a website, looking at what others have said about that page rather than relying primarily on what the site says about itself is an important step in the evaluation process.
If you'd like to learn more about lateral reading, web literacy, and information verification, click here to view the remainder of the videos in this short series.
Most people looking for online health information will start with search engine, like Google. Search results can come from many types of websites with many different purposes, including:
It can be difficult to discern the purpose of a site and the reliability of its information at first glance.
Adapted from https://libguides.einsteinmed.edu/c.php?g=123516&p=808209
It should be easy to learn who is responsible for publishing a website. If it isn’t obvious, look for a link on the homepage to an “About This Site” or "About Us" page.
What is the source of the information? A website's URL can reveal key details regarding who is sponsoring the site
The website should describe the evidence (such as articles in medical journals) that the material is based on. Opinions or advice should be clearly set apart from information that's "evidence-based" (based on research results). For example, if a site discusses health benefits you can expect from a treatment, look for references to scientific research that clearly support what's said.
Keep in mind: testimonials, anecdotes, unsupported claims, and opinions not the same as objective, evidence-based information.
These are statements that let the reader know what responsibility the website sponsors will take for the content on their site.
Web sites do track what pages you're looking at. They may also ask you to "subscribe" or "become a member." Any credible site collecting this kind of information should tell you exactly what it will and won't do with it.
The website should clearly state whether the information is intended for health information consumers or healthcare professionals. If it is meant for consumers, is it free of professional jargon and easy to read?
Credible health websites or sources of health information will routinely review and update their content. Outdated health information can be both misleading and dangerous.
Look for a publication or 'last updated' date on the website. If you cannot find one, be sure to cross check the information. If the material has references, check their currency as well.
Social media platforms & networks such as Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, TikTok, & YouTube, are becoming popular spaces for sharing health information. For patients and caregivers, these spaces are providing:
These spaces carry risks:
Adapted from https://libguides.einsteinmed.edu/c.php?g=123516&p=808220
Alongside the criteria mentioned above, social media sites should be evaluated for the following items:
