The Internet has revolutionized the way people get in touch, work and get informed.
Despite the Internet has brought many improvements in people’s lives, some drawbacks need to be considered.
One of such drawbacks is the spreading of fake news.
Fake news seems to be a “hot topic” nowadays and its consequences more severe during this period of the outbreak.
As Covid-19, fake news is also a virus, maybe the most powerful virus in the world, that infests our lives.
Fake news is not created “just for laugh” of “by someone who has nothing better to do”.
It is created as part of a specific strategy of misleading people and causing harm.
Fake news creators are encouraged to do this by revenues, of course.
When people share fake news or click on the headline or visit a fake news website, fake news creators earn from clicks.
Rather than developing super-technologic approaches aimed at automatically spot fake news, we focus on the vectors of this virus: people.
The amount of information uploaded on the Internet every day is huge, making it very hard for fake news detection algorithms and fact-checkers to evaluate the veracity of each news.
It is clear that we cannot just rely on them to stop the spreading of fake news, actually, we need a complementary approach that focuses on people.
After all, fake news exists mainly because there is someone that shares it.
Recent research suggests that one of the main drivers of fake news sharing in the lack of critical thinking: people that are more willing to engage in critical thinking are less susceptible to fake news and less likely to share them.
Therefore, together with debunking approaches, it is necessary to raise awareness of thinking critically before sharing contents on social media.
Crithink is born from the union of two words: critical and thinking.
This app is thought to stimulate your critical thinking before sharing news on your social networks, to keep our digital environments safe and limiting the spreading of fake new