[MUSIC PLAYING] - My name is Mike Caufield. I am fascinated with how to sort truth from fiction on the web, and I'm here to give you a simple set of tools that will help you to do the same. The particular moment that we're in right now is a moment of transition where we're all going to the web for information, but almost none of us have had true training in how to use it. 

Some people wonder, what does it matter whether something on the internet is true or not? And for a lot of things, it doesn't. But for a lot of decisions you make, there are consequences. And the most obvious of those is you will eventually vote for somebody, and you'll vote based on the information that you have. If that information is false, you may end up voting for someone that doesn't actually represent your interests. My core interest is, how can we give you the skills to make sure that information you're getting is the best possible information that you can get? 

So I want to show you two websites. This here is the first website, if you can see this. This is the American Academy of Pediatrics. Now, the American Academy of Pediatrics is an organization founded in the 1930s, a budget of something like $80 million, 60,000 members, considered by pediatricians, scientists, and governments as one of the premier authorities on the health and well-being of children. 

On the other hand, this is the American College of Pediatricians. Now, the American College of Pediatricians was founded to protest the adoption of children by same-sex couples. It's not a professional organization. It's considered by many to be a single-issue hate group. So these two sites are from completely different universes, and it should be pretty easy to tell them apart. 

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Some Stanford researchers recently looked at just that issue. They took three sets of people-- Stanford students, professional historians, and professional fact-checkers-- sat them down in front of a computer, and gave them five minutes to figure out which would be the more credible source. 

So how did they do? Well, the answer is not very well. First, let's talk about the historians. Half of the historians couldn't say for sure which site was the more credible site. The Stanford students, how did they do? 65% actually chose the website considered by many to be a hate site as the more credible source. 

Finally, we had the professional fact-checkers. The professional fact-checkers, 100% of them got it right. And not only did they get it right, but they got it right quickly. A lot of people in the other groups used their full five minutes. These fact-checkers got it right in seconds. 

So what accounts for that difference? The fact-checkers, they used a set of skills that are web-native, a set of skills that help them very quickly get to the truth of the matter. I want to show you how to use those skills. And that's what we're going to start to do in the next video. 

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