Fighting disinformation: Can You Believe It?

Can You Believe It? is an initiative dedicated to uncovering how disinformation reaches consumers and providing tools to help our audience fight its spread. Are you seeing disinformation in your social media feeds? Share with us by emailing tell@mpr.org.

"When we started on the game, fake news, the term that we know now, wasn't even in the vernacular."

Test your fake news judgment: Play this game

July 3, 2017 5:57 AM

By Tennessee Watson

The journalist who thought up this fake news game says she saw the need before 'fake news' was even in the vernacular.

Former FBI agent Clint Watts testifies before the Senate Intelligence Committee on Thursday in Washington, D.C.

How Russian Twitter bots pumped out fake news during the 2016 election

April 4, 2017 10:27 AM

By Avie Schneider and Gabe O'Connor

Clint Watts, a former FBI agent, describes a diffuse network of Russian hackers and propagandists conducting a misinformation campaign that didn't stop with the election of President Trump.

Students in Scott Bedley's fifth-grade class at Plaza Vista School in Irvine, Calif., play a version of "Simon Says" with fake news.

5 ways teachers are fighting fake news

February 16, 2017 8:30 AM

By Sophia Alvarez Boyd

In an era of national attention to what's real and what isn't, we asked educators to share their strategies for helping students sort out fact from fiction.

A finder's guide to facts

December 11, 2016 9:38 AM

By Steve Inskeep

A recent deluge of fake news suggests we live in a "post-truth" era. But NPR's Steve Inskeep says it would be more accurate to call this a "post-trust" era. Here are his tips to sniff out the suspect sources.

A gunman's appearance at a Washington, D.C., pizzeria that was falsely reported to house a pedophilia ring has elevated worries over the unrelenting rise of fake news on the Internet.

What legal recourse do victims of fake news stories have?

December 7, 2016 7:04 PM

Fake news played a bigger role in this past presidential election than ever seen before. And sometimes it has had serious repercussions for real people and businesses.

Fake news has been in the news recently, as it was especially prevalent throughout the presidential election and because of the impact it might have had on voters.

Fake or real? How to self-check the news and get the facts

December 5, 2016 1:12 PM

Your friend shares a story on Facebook. You read the headline and you think it's too good to be true, but it looks like it's from a news site. Experts offer tips to help you sniff out fact from fake.

"The whole idea from the start was to build a site that could kind of infiltrate the echo chambers of the alt-right."

We tracked down a fake-news creator in the suburbs. Here's what we learned

November 23, 2016 5:58 PM

By Laura Sydell

"The whole idea from the start was to build a site that could kind of infiltrate the echo chambers of the alt-right," says Jestin Coler, whose company, Disinfomedia, is behind some fake news sites.