The Academic Success Center held a fake news awareness training workshop on Tuesday.

The workshop was taught by Dennis Miles, reference and instruction librarian, in the orientation room at the Eunice & James L West Library.

Miles distributed computers to students and took them to the library website where he took them through a series of tabs explaining what fake news is, the history of fake news, how to spot phony news and how to differentiate fake news from real news.

“Fake news is when people manipulate real stories making them more sensational, to get clicks on their website and earn cash from each click their website receive,” Miles said. “Fake news can also involve manipulated pictures, so be aware of things like that.”

Nicolas Goldsby, freshman business management major, came to the workshop as part of his freshman success class; he chose the workshop because he knows social media has many stories being shared every day. Knowing how to tell fake stories from real ones is something he was set on learning.

“It’s been many workshops offer for my class, but I thought this one would be interesting to attend because I see a lot of things on my social media timeline,” he said. “Sometimes you can`t believe all the news your friends share. It was nice to know how to tell fake news; I didn’t realize that we see so many fake new daily.”

Freshman psychology major Joseph Normandy said the workshop helped him be more careful not to believe everything he reads on the internet and in magazines. He said that fake news is so common on social media now that most people, including him, tend to believe most of the stories if you don’t have the proper training.

“Fake news is around us more than we think, so I think being careful and fact checking things you read is a must in this technologically advanced society we live in today,” Normandy said.

Political science major senior Alicia Sidney said she knows people should be careful not to believe everything they read on the internet, but she was glad to learn how to tell fake news from real news.

“I’m glad that they have a website on the internet that helps you to fact check some of the things you read on the internet,” she said. “It’s good for when you are not sure if you should believe something or not.”

Websites like factcheck.org can help you fact check information from social media sites like Facebook.