<span style="background-color: transparent; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; white-space: pre-wrap;">It’s time to stop looking at our time as the era of “fake news” and start looking at it as the era of “fact-checking.” It can be difficult to distinguish fact from fiction in the digital age, so it is our responsibility to not always take headlines and viral memes at face value. We at Vote Smart want to help arm you with the tools and resources to do this.</span> <br> <br style="font-size: 12.8013px;"> <p dir="ltr" style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8013px; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"> <span style="background-color: transparent; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; white-space: pre-wrap;">Misinformation online is abundant. </span><a href="http://comprop.oii.ox.ac.uk/2017/09/28/social-media-news-and-political-information-during-the-us-election-was-polarizing-content-concentrated-in-swing-states/" style="font-size: 12.8013px; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: rgb(17, 85, 204); font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration-line: underline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Oxford University</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; white-space: pre-wrap;"> found that in 2016 “Twitter users got more misinformation, polarizing and conspiratorial content than professionally produced news.” That means that </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: rgb(153, 0, 0); font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: 700; white-space: pre-wrap;">more people read manipulation and falsehoods than facts.</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: 700; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span> </p> <br style="font-size: 12.8013px;"> <p dir="ltr" style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8013px; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"> <span style="background-color: transparent; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; white-space: pre-wrap;">Sensationalized, misleading, or simply false headlines flooded our news feeds in 2016 and 2017, and Vote Smart is here to help you weed out the garbage. By browsing our database of public statements, key votes, and more, you can see if a published claim is truth or trash. We also provide you with the ability to fact-check politicians to see if they have followed up their words with action.</span> </p>