Is media literacy the answer? Fake news exploded globally this year, fuelled by politics, the pandemic and access to social media. Do we need better readers as well as better news?
2021: The year in seven fake news stories
Glossary
Coins - Octavian printed slogans on coins suggesting his predecessor Mark Antony was a faithless drunk.
FBI - The Federal Bureau of Investigation, which investigates crimes on a national level in the USA.
UFO - An unidentified flying object is any aerial phenomenon that cannot be identified or explained.
AIDS - Acute Immune Deficiency Syndrome. It interferes with the immune system, leaving sufferers more vulnerable to common diseases. Around the world, almost 40 million people are believed to be living with the disease.
Ivermectin - More than a third of 26 major trials of ivermectin for use on Covid-19 contained serious errors or signs of fraud. None of the rest showed convincing evidence the drug is effective.
Deepfake - Deepfake videos and photos are made using Artificial Intelligence.
Cop26 - Cop stands for Conference of the Parties (COP) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change