How to Tell What’s Real Online
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Neil deGrasse Tyson's Checklist for Truth in the Digital Age
Learn scientist Neil deGrasse Tyson's personal yellow and red flag system for verifying information, separating signal from noise, and thinking like a scientist across the modern internet landscape.
Short Summary
- Actionable criteria explicitly define when to use caution (yellow flag) versus when to immediately dismiss a source (red flag).
- Relying on large language models (AI) requires verification, as they assemble words without guaranteed factual grounding.
- Avoid accepting information that explicitly tells you how to feel; cultivate your own reasoned opinions based on objective data.
- Content that is clipped, modified, or taken out of its original context demands investigation back to the source.
This guide presents Tyson’s systematic approach for navigating misinformation, ranging from industry bias and punditry to scientific frontier research and conspiracy claims. Following these checkpoints helps you rigorously test claims before altering your deeply held beliefs or actions.
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Top Comments (10)
It's a shame that the people who need to hear this most will never click on this video.
Finding out what's true and what's false on the internet should be at least a 1 year class in schools.
Please Neil for god sake make more videos on this topic and critical thinking. We really need a sincere and influential educator like yourself and your colleagues to drag us out of what is shaping up to be a second Dark Ages. We are sliding backwards and need all the help we can get. Thank you so very much for this video.
I took a course in high school about propaganda, around 1973. That class has saved my life. Thank you Mr Mattingly.
I almost didn't click on this video because I immediately thought to myself "I'm pretty good at fact checking what I see" and then I realized I'm the exact person who needs to watch this video.
One thing I like about libraries is that they have a clearly marked fiction section and a clearly marked nonfiction section. The Internet isn't setup that way. It's one big blog of information.
A bloke called Twain said , " its much easier to fool people than to convince people they have been fooled " .
I used to work as a librarian, and our main job was to teach people how to do research and how to evaluate resources for credibility. In my profession it was called "information literacy". From what I'm seeing online lately, my profession has failed.
a little tired of being told "who cares" when i tell people "thats ai" lol
Another thing I’ve noticed lately when I do actually research: The algorithm will catch up on my search subjects and start putting more yellow flag articles first in my next search results, which makes it even harder.
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Top Comments (10)
It's a shame that the people who need to hear this most will never click on this video.
Finding out what's true and what's false on the internet should be at least a 1 year class in schools.
Please Neil for god sake make more videos on this topic and critical thinking. We really need a sincere and influential educator like yourself and your colleagues to drag us out of what is shaping up to be a second Dark Ages. We are sliding backwards and need all the help we can get. Thank you so very much for this video.
I took a course in high school about propaganda, around 1973. That class has saved my life. Thank you Mr Mattingly.
I almost didn't click on this video because I immediately thought to myself "I'm pretty good at fact checking what I see" and then I realized I'm the exact person who needs to watch this video.
One thing I like about libraries is that they have a clearly marked fiction section and a clearly marked nonfiction section. The Internet isn't setup that way. It's one big blog of information.
A bloke called Twain said , " its much easier to fool people than to convince people they have been fooled " .
I used to work as a librarian, and our main job was to teach people how to do research and how to evaluate resources for credibility. In my profession it was called "information literacy". From what I'm seeing online lately, my profession has failed.
a little tired of being told "who cares" when i tell people "thats ai" lol
Another thing I’ve noticed lately when I do actually research: The algorithm will catch up on my search subjects and start putting more yellow flag articles first in my next search results, which makes it even harder.