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Before sharing a shocking political post, pause and check its source, date, context and evidence. Emotional language, urgency or an uncited image can be reasons to investigate, but none proves a claim is false or that its publisher is promoting extremism. Verify what can be established, and describe what remains unknown without guessing at intent.
How can I tell if a political post is propaganda?
Look for signs that call for verification rather than treating them as a verdict: pressure to share immediately, highly emotional framing, missing or unclear sourcing, selective quotations, or photos and clips detached from a date or event. A genuine claim can be expressed emotionally, and an inaccurate post may be shared without deliberate deception.
UNESCO distinguishes misinformation from disinformation by intent: misinformation is shared with neutral or good underlying intent, while disinformation involves intent to deceive. Intent is difficult to infer from a post alone. It is more accurate to describe observable problems—such as an omitted date or a quote that differs from the original—than to label a person’s motive without evidence. UNESCO’s terminology and verification guidance are available in its media and information literacy resources.
Likewise, the cited United Nations and UNESCO guidance does not provide a definitive checklist that can diagnose extremist propaganda from style alone. Verify the factual claim and its provenance before applying labels such as “disinformation” or “extremist propaganda.”
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How do I verify a political claim I saw online?
- Pause and preserve context. Do not forward the post while checking it. Note the exact claim, the account or organization that published it, the date, and the platform context. The United Nations recommends checking before relaying potentially hateful or misleading material.
- Separate fact from opinion. Identify the part that could be tested against evidence. A value judgment or prediction may not be verifiable in the same way as a claim about an event, quotation, statistic or document.
- Trace the claim to its original source. Look for the original speech, document, dataset, recording or post. Compare it with any secondary report, and check whether the material was edited, clipped or reposted later.
- Compare independent evidence. Check primary documents alongside reliable reporting or subject-matter sources. Repetition, popularity and confident wording are not confirmation. The UNESCO media and information literacy curriculum includes exercises in identifying testable claims, documenting verification steps and considering the effects of false claims.
- Separate findings from motive. State what the evidence supports and what it does not. A factual claim may be false or misleading without establishing that the person sharing it intended to deceive.
The United Nations’ “Engage” guidance puts the core step plainly: “To detect false and biased information, including hate speech propaganda, be sure to check the content’s origin with the help of search engines, fact-checking tools and other reliable sources.” Read the United Nations guidance on responding to hate speech.
How can I check whether a photo or video is old or out of context?
For a photo
Use reverse image search to look for earlier appearances of the picture. An older result may reveal a different location, event or date than the caption claims. Finding the same image elsewhere is a lead to investigate, not by itself proof that the current caption is false.
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For a video
Look for the original recording and compare the stated event, place and date with the clip and its upload timing. A short excerpt may omit context, and a genuine recording can still be presented with a misleading caption. The United Nations recommends searching for earlier appearances of images; UNESCO’s verification materials also address checking social-media content and context.
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What should I do after checking a shocking political claim?
- If a correction could help, explain the issue briefly and link to original evidence or a reliable fact-check. Avoid repeating slurs or sensational claims unless necessary to identify what is being addressed.
- If someone is being targeted, offer support and challenge hateful language calmly.
- If content violates platform rules, use that platform’s reporting mechanism. For serious threats or incitement, contacting relevant authorities may be appropriate, depending on local circumstances.
- If the evidence is incomplete, say what has not been established instead of presenting a guess as a fact.
Further reading
For a structured introduction to verification, UNESCO’s 2018 Journalism, Fake News & Disinformation: Handbook for Journalism Education and Training, by Cherilyn Ireton and Julie Posetti, covers misinformation, fact-checking, social-media verification and practical online verification. UNESCO lists it as 128 pages, ISBN 978-92-3-100281-6, and provides details and digital editions.
UNESCO reported in 2024 that two-thirds of digital content creators do not systematically fact-check information before sharing it online. In 2023, UNESCO and IPSOS reported that 85% of citizens were worried about the impact of online disinformation. These figures describe reported behavior and concern; they do not show that two-thirds of online content is false or establish whether any particular post is disinformation. See UNESCO’s 2024 survey.
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