A recent news report ("Brazilian kids being schooled to fight fake news", The Straits Times, 14 July 2018) said schoolchildren in Brazil are being taught how to identify fake news.
Teacher Ms Lucilene Varandas said students are taught to "look at the articles, who wrote them, who could be interested in them and where they're published, which are all ways of questioning the information."
In logic, we recognise a fallacy called Argumentum ad Hominem, which says that a person's character or circumstance is irrelevant to the truth or falsity of what that person says or writes.
A learned professor can possibly get something wrong (perhaps by accident); a fool can possibly get something right (perhaps by sheer good fortune); a campaigner for some cause can possibly conceal or invent some data just to forward his or her cause.
The stated methods of identifying fake news are entirely fallacious, meaning they are errors in reasoning. It is a pity that these are the methods that are being taught to those schoolkids.
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