A dog’s ears have been cut off by two men, who then posed with the injured animal and took a picture that is now viral. An ESPN commentator has been fired after facing backlash as to whether he used the term “guerilla” or “gorilla” in reference to tennis athlete Venus Williams’ performance. President Donald J. Trump plans to cut the budget for the National Endowment of the Arts.

These are just some of the stories that splashed through people’s Facebook pages a few days ago, and it has now become a responsibility of the people to determine whether the news they’re being given is legitimate or not.

Sixty-eight percent of people claim that they do not have any trust in the media, according to Gallup. What, exactly, is perpetuating this? The New York Times claims that social media — namely Facebook and other popular social websites — may be the culprit, and it’s happening all over the world.

In countries such as Indonesia, Facebook is so popular that it’s often confused for a legitimate news source and, while it has received commendations for features such as allowing people to mark their safety in areas of distress, it has also become a medium for dangerous rumors.

In an age in which social media and technology are at the forefront of most young people’s minds, it is often assumed that although teenagers and young adults are social media-savvy, they are also able to distinguish fact from fiction in posts and on web pages.

Stanford University conducted several research projects, and the results displayed the opposite.

After being given a URL — MinimumWage.org — only nine percent of high school students in an Advanced Placement history class were able to navigate beyond the home page to see that MinimumWage.org was actually a D.C. lobbyist group. Ninety-three percent of college students were unable to see through the guise.

A test given to middle schoolers determined that most students were able to distinguish between a traditional news story and a traditional advertisement. However, 80 percent of the students believed that sponsored content obviously labeled as such was a real news story.

That being said, let’s take a second to look at what qualifies as real news.

How to find real news

• As humans on that exist on this planet, a little bias is inevitable. However, true journalism is always based off of facts and should always be verifiable. If it sounds even the slightest bit crazy, it probably isn’t completely true and it should be looked into a little deeper.
• Look past the homepage of a website and question the people behind it, as well as the people that support it. “About” tabs display a lot of information regarding the founders of a webpage, including whether the site is owned by an activist group or a news corporation.
• Venture outside of your normal beliefs. If you tend to swing more to the left on the political spectrum, it may do some good to check out a more conservative news network from time to time to gain all perspectives, and vice versa.

How to spot fake news

• There are three kinds of fake news to look out for: completely fake sites with made-up headlines, websites that mix fact and fiction to obscure the truth, and websites that aren’t necessarily inaccurate but are misleading.  
• Look for sketchy URLs, like usatodaycom.com or or cnn.com.ixo, or something else that you’ve never seen before.
• Look for an author’s name. If there isn’t a name attached to an article, it’s not credible.
• If it sounds at all outlandish or too good to be true, it’s probably not true. If you’re not sure, Google the story topic and see if any other sources come up with the same story. Most of the time, you can find out if it’s a hoax or not by simply taking a few seconds to verify it.