The verdict

But how do fact checkers do their job? Alexios Mantzarlis, director of the International Fact-Checking Network at Poynter, says fact checkers have a process for each claim they deal with. Find whether they match or refute or prove the claim being made, and then present with all limitations the data and what the data says about the claim being made," Mantzarlis says.

That's the framework for professionals, but there are ways for everyone to do a bit of fact checking themselves. When she saw her students referencing questionable sources, she created and shared a document with them of how to think about sources, as well as a list of misleading, satirical and fake sites. Both Mantzarlis and Zimdars agreed there are a few best practices people can use when reading articles online. Established news organizations usually own their domains and they have a standard look that you are probably familiar with.

Sites with such endings like. This is true even when the site looks professional and has semi-recognizable logos.

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Most sites will have a lot of information about the news outlet, the company that runs it, members of leadership, and the mission and ethics statement behind an organization. The language used here is straightforward. If it's melodramatic and seems overblown, you should be skeptical. Also, you should be able to find out more information about the organization's leaders in places other than that site. Or rather, look at the lack of quotes.

Most publications have multiple sources in each story who are professionals and have expertise in the fields they talk about. If it's a serious or controversial issue, there are more likely to be quotes — and lots of them. Look for professors or other academics who can speak to the research they've done.


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And if they are talking about research, look up those studies. Then, see who said the quotes, and what they said. Are they a reputable source with a title that you can verify through a quick Google search? Say you're looking at a story and it says President Obama said he wanted to take everyone's guns away. And then there's a quote. Obama is an official who has almost everything he says recorded and archived.

There are transcripts for pretty much any address or speech he has given. See what the speech was about, who he was addressing and when it happened. Even if he did an exclusive interview with a publication, that same quote will be referenced in other stories, saying he said it while talking to the original publication. A lot of these fake and misleading stories are shared on social media platforms.

Headlines are meant to get the reader's attention, but they're also supposed to accurately reflect what the story is about. Lately, that hasn't been the case. Headlines often will be written in exaggerated language with the intention of being misleading and then attached to stories that are about a completely different topic or just not true.

These stories usually generate a lot of comments on Facebook or Twitter. If a lot of these comments call out the article for being fake or misleading, it probably is.


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A picture should be accurate in illustrating what the story is about. This often doesn't happen. If people who write these fake news stories don't even leave their homes or interview anyone for the stories, it's unlikely they take their own pictures. Do a little detective work and reverse search for the image on Google. You can do this by right-clicking on the image and choosing to search Google for it. That figure is well below the claimed by Mr Abbott.

Moreover, it includes all farmers, workers, families and visitors and all races. More recent figures, which identify white farmers, are available from the Transvaal Agricultural Union, a group representing the interests of farmers. According to their figures, there were 84 farm murders in the calendar year. Of these, 59 victims were white farmers. A further 15 people, including 8 white farmers, were killed on farms in the first three months of That means fewer than 70 white farmers were killed in the last 15 months. The police's latest data does reveal a rise in farm murders compared with the previous year, as does the union's data.

However, experts told Fact Check that these changes reflected a general increase in murders across the entire South African population since Farm violence has long plagued South Africa. In then president Nelson Mandela told a summit on rural safety and security:. While killings on farms, like crime in general, have been a feature of South African life for many decades, the incidents of murder and assault in farming areas have increased dramatically in recent years.

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Between and , the country's human rights commission conducted three inquiries into human rights violations in farming communities, and in the police minister appointed a committee of inquiry into farm attacks. As the inquiry's final report explains:. It can happen on any day of the week and at any time of the day or night. It can take place inside the house or outside. Many different crimes can be committed during the course of a farm attack. All kinds of weapons can be used in the attack, and anything of value can be stolen. Some attacks leave the victims unharmed, in other cases they are killed or seriously injured.

Some attackers have a clear motive, others not. Such attacks can include assault, rape, murder and at times, torture — examples of which are documented by the Afrikaner civil rights group AfriForum. Johan Burger, a senior researcher with South Africa's Institute for Security Studies, told Fact Check that while crimes such as assault are already serious, they take on "a completely different character" when committed on a farm.

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According to police evidence to the human rights commission, farms are particularly vulnerable "due to the perception that farmers are rich and keep firearms and cash on the premises for example to pay wages ". The South African police service collects official statistics on " farm attacks ", which includes murders on land used for commercial and non-commercial agricultural purposes. The figures are collated for the financial year, which in South Africa runs from April 1 to March But these are not released regularly.

That's because, police have said , the statistics would need to be audited. His figures for to differ slightly from those previously supplied by the police to the human rights commission in Chris de Kock, the former head of the police's Crime Information Analysis Centre, has compiled the police data available for the years to March However, non-government advocacy groups have begun to collect and publish their own — and these are more recent.

The Transvaal Agricultural Union of South Africa is one such group, formed by farmers to "ensure a productive and safe existence for its members". So there is no figure corresponding precisely to Mr Abbott's claim for the last 12 months, but there are figures for all of and for to date. Another group that publishes farm murder statistics is the Afrikaner civil rights group AfriForum.

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They did not respond to Fact Check's questions about their data, so this has not been analysed. But they have previously said that the most reliable, independent source of farm attack statistics was the Transvaal union. But the available police data does not identify farmers or white victims. A "farm murder", by their definition, covers any victim who happens to be on the farm.

In South Africa's police minister appointed a committee of inquiry into farm attacks, which reported that Those figures on all farm attacks, now 17 years old, say little about the murders recorded in the financial year. The union, though, does record extra information about each victim's race and association with the farm.

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This makes it possible to identify the white farmers Mr Abbott spoke of. The police data shows that in the financial year there were 74 people murdered on farms — far short of Mr Abbott's Data from the agricultural union shows that 82 people were killed in farm attacks during , including 59 white farmers and 2 black farmers.

In the first three months of , a total of 15 people were murdered, including 8 white farmers. These totals are reported by calendar year so aren't directly comparable with the police data reported by financial year. The police's data shows an extra 16 farm murders in compared with the previous year, a return to levels not seen since The union's data shows an increase of 11 murders of white farmers in and a further 10 in But he said the "biggest problem" with the data was that police stations do not specifically record hate-based murders or "farm murders".

Dr de Kock also pointed out that more than half of farm attacks or murders take place on "small holdings", usually plots of one or two hectares on the edge of towns and cities.