Name: Fake News: Fact and Fiction - Fake news in the age of coronavirus
Uploaded: 2020-10-24T18:25:21.000Z
Duration: 18 min 24 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

Hugo: Hello. This is Fake News,  Fact and Fiction from BBC

Hugo: And as you see we're not  in the studio today. Like in

many parts of the world we're  practising social distancing

and working from home. How are  you doing there, Sam?

Sam: I'm doing OK. Thank  you Hugo, but it is definitely

a strange world that we're  living in right now, isn't it?

And I don't know if you  remember but in our first

programme we talked about  stories going viral, so

spreading around the internet  really quickly and well now,

what we have is a real virus that has gone viral.

Hugo: Indeed. And that is going  to be the focus of today's

programme. This pandemic has  seen a large amount of fake

news attached to it. And as we  sit at home browsing the

internet we may have come  across many different stories

and theories of the causes of  the virus or possible cures. So

today we're looking at fake  news in the era of Covid-19.

But before we get to that Sam,  do you have some vocabulary for us?

Sam: Yes I do. So today I'm  focusing on some useful

vocabulary you might use if you  think that what you've seen

Red flags are often used as a  warning sign. In fact in

Britain when motor cars were  first used on the streets the

law said that you had to have  someone walking in front of the

vehicle carrying a red flag to  warn other road users. These

days if a piece of information  or a social media post

'raises a red flag' it means  you are suspicious that it

There are many red flags to  watch out for. For example a

post that says something like  'the media doesn't want you to

know this' or maybe it's a meme  or a quote that claims that a

politician you don't like has  said or done something

terrible. These posts might be  easy to share or they might

even say 'you must share this!'  or 'share this if you agree'.

Those are some examples of red  flags that could make you doubt

We all like to share things and  we all like it when things we

share are liked. But before you  hit that share button it's a

good idea to fact-check the information the

verb fact-check, first used in  the 1970s, simply means to

check the facts to confirm that  the information is true.

There are quite a few fact- checking websites which can

help you to verify, prove,  or debunk, disprove,

the information. Debunk, a verb  from the 1920s, means to prove

or demonstrate that something  is not true that it is

completely false. So fact- checking can help you to debunk

Now you might be wondering, as  there is a word debunk, is

there a word bunk? Well yes  there is but it's not a verb

it's a noun. Bunk and also  bunkum are words that mean

nonsense. Interestingly they  are political in origin and

come from the county of Buncombe  in the United States. This

county was represented by a  politician who talked a lot

without saying anything  important. So he talked bunkum.

Hugo: Very interesting Sam, it  certainly wasn't bunkum but

there was a piece of fake news  there wasn't there? 'Back to

Sam: Yes, well spotted. I did  record that section before I

knew that we would be filming  from home for this episode so I

Hugo: Of course, now this  pandemic has been dominating

the news for a long time now  and there are many legitimate

areas of discussion to do with  restrictions of movement,

Sam: But we've also seen a lot  of different theories about the

virus which are not supported  by any evidence but which many

people have still shared . Some  of these are what are known as

Hugo: And examples of  conspiracy theories are that

the earth is flat or that the  moon landings were fake and

even though these theories are  comprehensively debunked some

people still strongly  believe them. To find out more

about conspiracy theories we  spoke to Professor Joe

Uscinski. He's an associate  professor of political science

at the University of Miami and  the author of the book

'Conspiracy Theories, a  Primer'. We asked him first to

define the term conspiracy  theory and why people

A conspiracy theory is an  allegation or an idea that a

small group of powerful people  are working in secret to effect

an event or circumstance in a  way that benefits them and

harms the common good. And  further this theory hasn't been

confirmed by the people we  would look to to confirm such

events. There is nothing new  about conspiracy theories and

you can find them if you look  through almost any historical

So for example the United  States Declaration of

Independence has a few  paragraphs about politics. But

then once you read  beneath that, it's largely a

list of conspiracy theories  about the king of England. So

they exist amongst all people  at all times. They're very much

a human constant. People like  to have their ideas make sense

when in combination with each  other. So in order for someone

to adopt a conspiracy theory  that theory has to match with

So for example if you really  like President Obama, you're

probably not going to think  that he faked his birth

certificate to illegally become  president. If you really like

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Fake News: Fact and Fiction - Fake news in the age of coronavirus

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