Assess reliability and detect manipulation

Definition

Judging the credibility of a piece of content, spotting disinformation, synthetic content and influence techniques. This is the core of intellectual hygiene: the ability to suspend judgement, to verify before sharing, and to recognise the mechanisms — cognitive and rhetorical — by which we are made to believe or to act.

Components

• Credibility criteria for a piece of content: identifiable author, date, intent, evidence provided, traceability
• Cognitive biases exploited by content (confirmation, availability, anchoring, appeal to emotion)
• Detecting synthetic content (images, voices, videos, generated text) through contextual clues and verification tools
• Manipulation techniques: fallacies, framing, false experts, manufactured consensus, astroturfing, misleading headlines
• Fact-checking practices: method, tools, limits

The four levels

1. N1 Discovery Lower secondary · complete beginner

   Is able to explain why a piece of content may be false or misleading, and to name at least two indicators of unreliability.

   Evidence of assessment

   Analyse three pieces of content, one of them misleading, and justify the judgement made on each.

2. N2 Application Upper secondary · advanced beginner

   Is able to apply a systematic verification checklist and to spot a plausible piece of synthetic content.

   Evidence of assessment

   Produce a documented fact-check of a viral claim, making the method followed explicit.

3. N3 Adaptation Tertiary · junior professional

   Is able to evaluate contradictory sources on a contentious subject and to produce an honest synthesis, uncertainties included.

   Evidence of assessment

   Publish (or make publishable) a contradictory synthesis mapping the positions in presence.

4. N4 Orchestration Experienced professional

   Is able to design a complete verification scheme and to settle ambiguous cases, where signals of reliability contradict one another.

   Evidence of assessment

   Design a verification scheme and document it across ten real cases, including three ambiguous ones with the decision taken.