Authenticating Information

In this section, you can find...

Whether you are doing a little research, following a news story, or sharing interesting things on social media, the Internet is a never-ending source of information. But how do you know if that information is true, unbiased and relevant?  This section helps you sharpen your critical thinking skills in finding, recognizing and sharing quality info online.

Break the Fake

Learn four easy fact-checking skills that can be done in under a minute with our Break the Fake tips, videos, quizzes and more.

Verifying Online News

Most of us turn to online sources for news, whether it’s reading a newspaper online or sharing a news story with our friends and family. But news stories are one of the hardest things to verify: sometimes early reports that turn out not to be true still circulate on social media and people may spread false reports for political or commercial reasons, or just for “fun.”

Impact of Misinformation

Informed voters are essential to the democratic process, but in our modern news environment it can be difficult separating facts from propaganda. This section will explore how to read election and political news critically, how to recognize misinformation and disinformation, and how to be a more active and engaged consumer of political news.

Evaluating Science and Health Information

Two of the most important kinds of information we look for online are about health and science. This section looks at how we get news and information about health and science topics, types of misinformation that are particularly common in those subjects, and steps we can take to determine how reliable a source or claim is.

Authentication 101

information on how to search and how to authenticate information. Both are essential skills to master if we want to end up with relevant and reliable information.

Ethics of Sharing Information Online

Thanks to the internet, today we’re not just consumers of news but broadcasters as well – and our friends and families are counting on us to only share accurate, reliable information.

This public awareness program, created in partnership between MediaSmarts and the Facebook Canadian Election Integrity Initiative, focuses on authentication of online information.