According to Mark Twain “A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes”  In an era where social media is something which transports information in milliseconds can be good as well as bad. The outbreak of coronavirus has further fueled the spread of fake news. Fake News right now is a massively infuriating crisis and is coming at the cost of our lives and continues to threaten our society’s integrity.  According to a report published in Ambio, a journal of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, fake news on social media about global warming and biodiversity loss has emerged as a barrier in the climate change mitigation efforts.  The flow of information gives chance for bogus news to spread rapidly with just a click. Curbing fake news while protecting freedom of speech and expression isn’t an easy task at all. Here are some measures that we can take to prevent the spread of misinformation: 

• Know the difference between facts and opinions. Analyze the construction of the article and distinguish between the facts and opinions.
• Report the false information to the platform administrators, make more noise than people who share false information.
• Look for grammatical errors , incorrect dates, bold claims with no sources and sensationalist images. These are all red flags
• Never share a post on social media without fact checking. Use fact checking to confirm information and see whether other credible news outlets are reporting similar news.
• Try Reverse Image Search, if the same image appears in unrelated stories you may have a reason to be suspicious.

 All these steps can help slow down a lie, giving the truth more time to put on its shoes.