We all know that we are in a time of huge amounts of information available to us all. And part of that flood of information are things that are objectively bad or untrue. Ideally, we could look at a piece of information and immediately know that it’s completely wrong, or that it’s out of context, or that it’s implying something that is not true.

We can’t always know that we are seeing bad information, but we can build our skills up in identifying that bad information.

This is a really fun website for you, and to share with your patrons! Check out Spot The Troll game!

This is their description from their website:

“A troll is an inauthentic social media account. Often created to spread misinformation and distrust, trolls have been deployed on every major social media platform. This quiz tests users’ ability to identify which accounts are genuine and which are professional trolls. Along the way, advice is provided for what to look for and how to be a better consumer and producer of social media.

The quiz presents users with 8 profiles, each of which includes both profile information and a brief selection of posts from a single social media account. The user is asked to decide if the content comes from an authentic account or a professional troll. Each question is followed by some tips that might help in the future, as well as the opportunity to explore more details.

There are a number of well-known tactics employed by bots and trolls on social media you may have seen in the past. These include unsolicited messages, hyper-active accounts, accounts with no profile image, accounts with stolen profile images, or computer generated account names. While some of the troll accounts we discuss in the quiz used these tactics, they are not the focus of what we cover.

All of the accounts and posts used in this quiz, both the genuine accounts and the trolls, have been taken directly from Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. Nothing has been changed.

While fake accounts are created for a variety of reasons, the troll accounts and posts in this quiz have all been linked to Vladimir Putin’s troll factory, the Internet Research Agency, based in Saint Petersburg, Russia. Many foreign and domestic actors, however, have learned from the Russians and have begun to use some of their tactics. These include operations in Iran, China, and around the globe. Learning to understand Russian trolls will help you understand others.”