Circulation of misinformation about the coronavirus and other fake news is a threat to social-media consumers worldwide, but one LSU professor is leading a team of students to educate the public through a website.
Leonard Apcar, a professor at LSU’s Manship School of Mass Communication, founded www.detectfakenews.com, a site designed to inform audiences about the dangers of fake news and offer tools to identify it, including misinformation surrounding COVID-19.
According to the website, identifying fake news involves checking the quotes, images, attribution, sources, bias and a website’s URL address. Apcar says media consumers should look for independent and corroborated reporting.
The site posts articles that identify fake items, and Apcar and his students update followers via a Twitter account, @detectfakenews.
