Or you might be enticed by a headline that says, “The IRS ‘Cheat Code’ to Move Your IRA/401(k) to Gold.” I would know not to click on that one, but undoubtedly some people fall for it. With the uncertainty hovering over the stock market, might you be tempted to move all your retirement money to precious metals? The shady outfit pitching this highly risky investment strategy sure hopes so.
Ads masquerading as genuine media-generated stories is something we need to be concerned about.
On the home pages of legitimate news sources — The Washington Post, The New York Times and other publications — are articles that may not immediately be recognized as advertiser-driven content.
The news organizations need the ad revenue. And it helps keep the free press affordable.
April is Financial Literacy Month. It’s an annual effort by various consumer advocacy groups to highlight the need for all of us to be better informed. As part of this year’s campaign, the FoolProof Foundation has rolled out a “Fake News” resource page on its website (www.foolproofme.com/topics/fake-news).
Here is some of the trickery they spotlight:
• Native advertising. Because consumers have become more adept at skipping or blocking advertising, marketers have become more creative and covert, says Mara Einstein, a professor at Queens College, CUNY and author of “Black Ops Advertising.”
Native advertising refers to any paid product pitch that’s designed to resemble a publication’s editorial content. Because it looks like content that readers trust, they are more apt to let down their guard, Einstein said.
Einstein recommends limiting notifications from legitimate news sources, especially on your smartphone, which, in turn, will reduce the time you spend online and reduce your exposure to ads pretending to be news.
• Listicles. These are articles that are nothing more than lists. BuzzFeed is masterful at these.
Catching on to the popularity of list-type stories, advertisers sometimes sponsor hollow albeit entertaining listicles.
• Clickbait. Watch out for headlines that are cunningly written to reel you into an ad — as with the headline mentioned above purporting to reveal a “cheat code” for the IRS.
FoolProof’s site also has a number of good videos. Two that I’d recommend — especially for children — are “Most Young People Don’t Know When News Is Fake. Do You?” and “Fake News Targets Your Pocketbook and Your Welfare.”
A Stanford University study found that more than 80 percent of middle-school students, many digitally literate, believed that an advertisement that was identified as “sponsor content” was a real news story.
We all need to protect ourselves from a one-sided “sales pitch that is designed to look like a balanced and trustworthy story,” says Will deHoo, co-founder and executive director of FoolProof.
One tip from FoolProof is to do some sleuthing. You’re online anyway, so take the time to see if what you are viewing is legit. And certainly do it before you share anything with friends and family.
Michelle Singletary welcomes comments and column ideas. Reach her in care of The Washington Post, 1150 15th St. N.W., Washington, DC 20071; or singletarym@washpost.com.
