Charles DickensThe Victorian novelist is credited with inventing Christmas as we know it today through the warm descriptions of it in his books. might have called it a tale of two egos. When Elon MuskA South African-born entrepreneur whose companies have included the online payment service PayPal. and Donald Trump held an interview together on the former's social media platform, XA social media network, formerly known as Twitter and owned by Elon Musk. , few were expecting anything less than a fact-free love-in.

Musk, fresh from spreading online rumours that the UK government is building prison camps on remote islands, had already endorsed Trump for US president.¹ Trump had spent his weekend claiming his opponent, Kamala Harris, had faked a welcoming crowd at DetroitThe largest city in the US state of Michigan. Airport using AIA computer programme that has been designed to think. .²

And their two-hour conversation went more or less as most observers anticipated. Trump ranted. Musk asked gentle questions. And both men made unevidenced or outright false claims.

It started when Musk asserted technical difficulties that delayed the talk by a full hour had been caused by hackers (X employees expressed scepticism).³ Trump claimed the world has 100 to 500 years before climate breakdown begins to cause catastrophic effects; most scientists say the Earth will reach a disastrous 1.5C of global heating in less than 10 years.⁴

And at the end he said 60 million users had been listening to their conversation, when the stream said there were 1.1 million listeners.

All of this suggests the stream of misinformationIncorrect or misleading information unintentionally presented as fact. It can be contrasted with disinformation or deliberate lies. is unlikely to dry up any time soon. Experts fear we can expect another three months of wading through falsehoods, trying to find the truth - and, if Trump wins the election, another four years.

Which means we need to be armed with critical thinking skills to tell fact from fiction. Here are some strategies you can use to stay informed.

Can we learn to tell good knowledge from bad?

Yes: Learning to tell what is true from what is not is what a good education is all about. Alongside picking up knowledge, we can pick up key skills to tell what knowledge is worthwhile.

No: Working out what is true is a painstaking, time-consuming slog. Modern propagandists flood us with so much knowledge that we cannot possibly subject all of it to the tests laid out above.

Or... Checking everything we read can be laborious, but once we have a good instinct for how fake news works, which sources engage in it and which do not, we can quickly spot untruths.

FOR YOUR SUMMER READING CHALLENGE CLUE GO TO STEP SIX IN THE SIX STEPS TO DISCOVERY BELOW.