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  • Hi, my name is John Green

  • In a few weeks we will begin a 10-episode series on Navigating Digital Information,

  • which probably sounds boring.

  • We thought it about calling something else--Crash Course Saving the Internet from Itself, Crash

  • Course Oh My God This Virtual Place Is On Fire, Crash Course Maybe We Should Go Back

  • to Trusting Experts, et cetera.

  • But we ended up calling it Crash Course Navigating Digital Information because that is what we

  • are actually going to try to learn how to do together.

  • And I say together because I am not particularly good at navigating digital information.

  • Like a lot of you, I've read entire stories online before even looking at the name of

  • the website I'm on.

  • My brain has to an extent been hacked by large corporations that are able to monetize my

  • attention, and they hold my attention in part by showing me information that outrages and

  • astonishes me, that scratches some itch so deep down in my consciousness that I can't

  • even quite identify it.

  • I find myself scrolling into the infinite, refreshing to see what is newer than the news

  • that broke ten minutes ago, passively ingesting all kinds of information without pausing to

  • consider the quality of that information or how it is shaping my understanding of the

  • universe and my place in that universe.

  • And as we let that happen, as we allow ourselves to fall into the vast endlessness of passive

  • scrolling, we allow the information we ingest, and the algorithms feeding us that information,

  • to shape who we are as people--to shape how we think, what we value, whom we trust, and

  • what we do.

  • Much attention has rightly been paid to the ways that misinformation and disinformation

  • are shaping our political and social discourse, but they are also shaping us--as individuals

  • and as communities.

  • Getting better at evaluating information means becoming a better citizen of the communities

  • where you live; it also means become a better informed and more engaged person.

  • I love the Internet.

  • As a child in the early 1990s, I felt isolated and struggled socially, and the Internet helped

  • me feel less alone and better connected to nerdy, weird people who were like me.

  • It has made us a closer species and given voice to people who otherwise would not have

  • been heard.

  • I am not here to attack the Internet.

  • I'm also not here to celebrate one ideology's misinformation over another's.

  • Everyone is susceptible to being misled online, and anyone who believes themselves to be somehow

  • immune to misinformation is, in fact, especially susceptible to it.

  • Instead, I want to share with you proven methods for evaluating the quality of information

  • you encounter online, and for becoming a more active consumer of information.

  • You may be wondering, how is this different from your crash course in Media Literacy.

  • Well, in some ways that was more of an academic introduction and this is more of a practical

  • one.

  • This is vocational school for being online

  • Internet is different for each of us--and never more so than in this era of endlessly

  • personalized and customized information flow.

  • So I don't know if we're going to figure out how to fix the Internet in the next ten

  • weeks, but each of us can improve our approach to information on the Internet.

  • To do this, Crash Course is working with MediaWise, a project from the Poynter Institute designed

  • to help students evaluate the accuracy of digital information.

  • Mediawise--and so indirectly this series--is funded by Google, which owns YouTube.

  • Google also loaned Crash Course its initial funding way back in 2011, although we eventually

  • paid them back.

  • I'm saying all of this, and will say it again during the series, because it's important

  • to understand where funding comes from when evaluating the accuracy of digital information,

  • including when you're evaluating the accuracy of digital information about evaluating the

  • accuracy of digital information.

  • It's evaluating the accuracy of digital information all the way down.

  • The curriculum itself we'll be using was developed by the Stanford History Education

  • Group, based around research on civic online reasoning they began in 2015.

  • With their help, we're going to learn how to interact with the Internet the way professional

  • fact-checkers do, and along the way maybe also come to understand some of what's wrong

  • with the way our information feeds are working, and how we can tack against the prevailing

  • winds of misinformation.

  • Thanks for watching; I'll see you in a few weeks.

Hi, my name is John Green

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