Trust Tools

Fake information is experiencing a boom, but given the right tools, you can reliably separate the wheat from the chaff.

- Erik Bärwaldt

As the volume of information on the Internet increases, so does the volume of misinformation. It is almost impossible to check all the information you read every day. Even media companies find it difficult to correctly classify and evaluate all the information coming in from the various social media channels.

In the meantime, political groups, fringe actors, and hostile foreign states have made a science out of passing disinformation intentionally to further their political ends. Normal users are finding it increasingly difficult to distinguish genuine news from manipulated news.

The good news is that various developers have identified this shortcoming and are providing extensions for popular web browsers to help distinguish between fake and genuine information. Many of these tools are based on artificial intelligence techniques, but some include support for manual checks or database comparisons for cases where artificial intelligence is not yet up to the task of fully automated checking.

Fake information also affects product reviews, where a company's aim is to sell more of its own items or discredit competitors’ products. Browser extensions can scan product reviews, especially on large platforms like Amazon, and alert you to false information.

The currently available browser extensions focus on different areas that serve as the distribution channels for fake news (see the box entitled “Techniques”). Some of the add-ons are exclusively designed for use on the major social networks. Others focus on checking YouTube videos. Others check images published on the Internet, making it easier to expose images that have been altered or misrepresented.