- A useful strategy when it comes to tackling misinformation is lateral reading. In lateral reading the idea is to first verify if an author, organisation or source is reliable first. - After this you can also verify some of the claims elsewhere before trusting the news article or social media post. --- "Lateral reading begins with a key insight: One cannot necessarily know how trustworthy a website or a social-media post is by engaging with and critically reflecting on its content. Without relevant background knowledge or reliable indicators of trustworthiness, the best strategy for deciding whether one can believe a source is to look up the author or organization and the claims elsewhere (e.g., using search engines or Wikipedia to get pointers to reliable sources). The strategy of lateral reading was identified by studying what makes professional fact-checkers more successful in verifying information on the Web compared with other competent adults (undergraduates at an elite university and Ph.D. historians from five different universities). Instead of dwelling on an unfamiliar site (i.e., reading vertically), fact-checkers strategically and deliberately ignored it until they first opened new tabs to search for information about the organization or individual behind it. If lateral reading indicates that the site is untrustworthy, examining it directly would waste precious time and energy." - [Source](https://www.niemanlab.org/2022/11/whats-the-best-way-to-deal-with-a-flood-of-misinformation-maybe-its-time-for-some-deliberate-ignorance/?utm_source=pocket_saves)