Media & Deepfake · Project 9 of 12

The Lie This Street Believes

How many people believe something untrue

Ask twenty people whether the claim your street forwards every week is true, then count how many say yes.

Six weeksNo equipment on the paper route 20 written stepsMarked out of 20Free forever
The question

Which false claim is circulating hardest in your own family and neighbourhood groups, how many out of twenty people believe it, and what has believing it already cost them?

Every platform, newsroom, hospital and election office now pays people to decide whether a claim is true and to publish the working behind that decision. Verification is a trade with a method: trace the earliest version, check three sources that did not copy one another, record exactly how each was checked, and measure who believes the claim and what they did about it. Machine-made voices, faces and video are making that method more valuable rather than less, because the cheap part is now producing the lie and the expensive part is proving it.

Two acts. Find, then fix.

Every EAD project runs the same shape. The first act produces a number nobody in the room could previously state. The second act changes exactly one thing and proves whether that number moved.

Act 1 · Find
You log every forwarded message, voice note, image and clip reaching your family and neighbourhood groups for seven days, then take the single claim that appears most often and test it against three independent sources, writing down exactly how each check was done. You then ask twenty people the identical, neutrally worded question and record how many say the claim is true, and what believing it has already cost them in money, in treatment avoided, or in somebody blamed.

A one-page costed problem statement carrying four lines: the claim in the words people actually use, the verdict with its three checks and their dates, the percentage of twenty people who say it is true, and what it has cost them. Beside it sits a bar chart of believe, do not believe and not sure, with the refusal count printed underneath.

Act 2 · Fix
You build a correction of sixty seconds or less — a voice note, a card or a short video — in the same format and the same language the claim travels in, and share it with the same groups and the same twenty people. Seven days later you ask the identical question, in identical words, to the same twenty and compare.

A two-bar chart of the percentage who say the claim is true, before against after, with the change stated both in percentage points and in whole people, the number who saw the correction, the number you could not reach, and a named list of every reason the change might not be yours.

What actually gets measured

The numberpercentage of twenty people who say the claim is true, in per cent of twenty people
BeforeThe same neutrally worded question, read word for word from the page, put to each of twenty people separately before any correction exists, with each answer recorded as true, false or not sure against a code number, and every refusal counted in its own column.
AfterThe identical wording, read from the same page, put to the same twenty coded people seven days after the correction was shared, with anyone who cannot be reached recorded as unreachable rather than assumed unchanged.
The honest partA well-measured failure scores higher than an unmeasured success. If the number did not move, say so and explain why.

Every step, written out

Twenty steps in total — ten to find the number, ten to fix it. Pick the route that matches what your school actually has.

The claim travels by mouth as well as by phone, so this route logs what people repeat out loud, checks it against a printed source you can hold and a person with direct authority, and delivers the sixty seconds face to face with a hand-copied card.
You need: A notebook ruled into five columns with a pen and a ruler: date, group code, format, the claim in one sentence, times heard · A card with the question written out once, read word for word at every asking so the wording never drifts · Twenty numbered slips of paper, one per person, so an answer is recorded against a number and never against a name · A printed source you can hold in your hand: a medicine leaflet, a published tariff sheet, a public notice, a newspaper cutting · Squared paper for the belief chart and the before-and-after chart, drawn to a stated scale · Plain cards and a pen for the correction, copied by hand or at a photocopy shop

  1. Collect what circulates

    45 minutes spread over seven days
    Log every claim you hear repeated for seven days, in conversation, at the shop, at the gate, and every message read aloud to you.
    • Rule five columns across a fresh page: date, group code, format, the claim in one sentence, times heard.
    • Give every group and every gathering a code letter, and write no name, no house and no telephone number anywhere on the page.
    • Write each claim in your own words in one sentence, and mark how it arrived — said aloud, read aloud from a phone, a picture shown to you, a card handed over.
    • When the same claim comes round again, add a stroke to the times-heard tally rather than starting a new row.
    • Carry the notebook with you and write it down the same hour you hear it, because a claim recalled at night has already changed shape.
    Write down: One ruled row per distinct claim, with dates, format, group code and a tally of times heard across the full seven days.
    Finished when: Seven days are logged, every group is a letter, and nobody on the page could be identified by a stranger reading it.
    Commonest mistake: Writing down who said it. The sender is not part of the data and never becomes part of it — the claim is what you are counting.

  2. Pick one claim

    40 minutes
    Choose the single claim heard most often and write it as one sentence that can be shown true or false.
    • Count the tallies, list the top five on a clean page, and read them aloud.
    • Cross out anything about religion, politics, a sect, an ethnic group or a named person, and write 'out of bounds' beside each.
    • From the rest, take the most practical and local: a remedy, a price, a scam, a claim about a school, a water supply or an electricity bill.
    • Rewrite it with no hedging, in the words people actually use, so evidence can settle it either way.
    • Write one line on what somebody would do, spend or avoid if they believed it.
    Write down: The chosen claim as one testable sentence, the four rejected claims, and the reason beside each rejection.
    Finished when: Somebody reading your sentence can tell you what evidence would prove it wrong.
    Commonest mistake: Choosing the claim that annoys you most rather than the one that spreads most. The tally decides, not your temper.

  3. Check it three ways

    2 hours
    Test the claim against three sources that did not copy one another, and write down exactly how each check was done.
    • Go to a person with direct authority — a pharmacist or a doctor for a remedy, the utility office for a bill claim, the school office for a school claim — and write their answer and the date at the doorway before you forget it.
    • Get a printed source into your hand: a medicine leaflet, the published tariff sheet, a public notice, a newspaper cutting from a library, and copy the exact line and its date into the notebook.
    • Trace the chain: ask the person who repeated it who they heard it from, then ask that person the same, until the chain stops, and write where it stopped.
    • Rule a check table with four columns — source, what it says, how you checked it, date checked — and fill one row per check.
    • If two of your three checks turn out to come from the same origin, say so and find a third that does not.
    Write down: Three checks in full, each with a named person or a printed line, the method, the date, and the verdict: true, false or unproven.
    Finished when: Three independent checks exist and a stranger could walk your route and repeat any one of them from your notes alone.
    Commonest mistake: Accepting 'everybody knows' as a source. If you cannot point at a printed line or name the person who said it and when, it is not a check.

  4. Ask the twenty

    2 hours over three days
    Put the same neutrally worded question to twenty people and record what each of them believes.
    • Write the question once on a card: 'Have you heard that [claim]? Do you think that is true, false, or are you not sure?' and read it from the card every single time.
    • Practise it flat, with no tone, on two people first, and leave those two out of the count.
    • Ask each of the twenty alone, and write the answer on a numbered slip — true, false or not sure — with no name on the slip.
    • Keep a separate refusal tally, and thank anybody who declines without asking twice.
    • Ask one follow-up only — 'where did you first hear it' — and write the reply in their own words on the same slip.
    Write down: Twenty numbered slips, one answer each, a refusal tally, and the place each person said they first heard the claim.
    Finished when: Twenty answers exist, all given to identical wording read from the card, and no name appears on any slip.
    Commonest mistake: Improvising the question when you are tired. Read the card; a question asked three different ways produces three different surveys.

  5. Count the cost

    60 minutes
    Find out what believing this claim has already cost the people who believe it.
    • Return to the slips marked true, find those people again, and ask what they did about it: bought, avoided, stopped a medicine, changed shop, warned a relative.
    • Walk to the shop or the pharmacy counter and write down the real price of anything bought or avoided, rather than trusting a remembered figure.
    • Write any harm that is not money in one line each with no names: a treatment delayed, a shop or a person blamed, an argument in the family.
    • Add the costs, divide by the number who answered true, and write the total across the twenty with the words 'estimate from a small sample' beside it.
    • Where a believer says it cost them nothing, write a zero rather than leaving the line blank.
    Write down: What each believer did, the rupee cost where there is one, the harm that is not money where there is not, and the estimated cost across the twenty.
    Finished when: You can state one sentence of the form 'this many of twenty believe it, and between them it has cost this much'.
    Commonest mistake: Turning one dramatic story into a figure for the whole street. Report what you collected and say how many cases it was.

  6. Name the cost

    50 minutes
    Finish the costed problem statement on one page and choose exactly what your sixty-second correction will be.
    • Write four lines: the claim in its own words, the verdict with its three checks, the percentage of twenty who say it is true, and what it has cost so far.
    • Draw the belief chart on squared paper — believe, do not believe, not sure — to a stated scale, with the refusal count written underneath.
    • Choose the format that reaches these people: sixty seconds said out loud face to face, a hand-copied card, or both together.
    • Write the prediction: 'I will give a sixty-second correction to the same twenty people and expect belief to fall from A per cent to B per cent in seven days.'
    • Read the page to one person who believed the claim, ask what would make them stop repeating it, and write the answer word for word.
    Write down: The one-page costed problem statement, the drawn chart, the chosen format with its reason, and the dated prediction.
    Finished when: Somebody who was not there reads the page once and repeats your percentage back correctly.
    Commonest mistake: Choosing the format that is easiest for you. If the claim travels in conversation, a card left on a wall will never catch it.

  7. Make the sixty seconds

    90 minutes
    Build a correction of sixty seconds or less that is polite, sourced, short and easy to repeat.
    • Write it in this order: what the message says, what is actually true, the one source that shows it, and what to do instead.
    • Read it aloud against a watch with a second hand and cut words until it fits inside sixty seconds every time.
    • Correct the message and never the sender: say 'this message is wrong', never 'whoever sent this is lying', and name nobody.
    • Copy it onto plain cards by hand, or take one card to a photocopy shop, with the source written on the back of every copy.
    • Say it to two people first — one who believed the claim, one who did not — and write down every word each of them changed.
    Write down: The final script timed at sixty seconds or under, both reviewers' comments, and the card with its source line on the back.
    Finished when: It is said in sixty seconds or under, it carries one named source, and it names no person at all.
    Commonest mistake: Repeating the false claim loudly at the start so it is the part people remember. Say it once, plainly, then spend the rest on what is true.

  8. Deliver it

    90 minutes
    Give the correction to the same people and the same gatherings the claim came from, and log where it went.
    • Say the sixty seconds face to face to each of the twenty, one at a time, and hand over a card afterwards.
    • Deliver it once in each gathering it belongs in, with one polite sentence of your own and no accusation in it.
    • Log the date, the group code, roughly how many people heard it, and anything said back, in a ruled table.
    • Ask three people to pass the card on, and record whether they actually did.
    • If any gathering turns hostile, stop at once, do not argue, leave, and write down what was said and what you did.
    Write down: The delivery log with dates, group codes, numbers reached and replies, plus any hostility recorded in full with your own response.
    Finished when: All twenty have heard it, every gathering is logged, and any hostile response is written up rather than argued with.
    Commonest mistake: Standing your ground when a room turns. One polite sentence with the source, then leave; the argument you win costs you the re-asking in step nine.

  9. Ask the same twenty again

    90 minutes
    Seven days later, put the identical question to the same twenty people and compare.
    • Wait a full seven days from delivery, and write the exact date beside each re-asking.
    • Read the question from the same card, word for word, exactly as it was asked the first time.
    • Ask 'did you hear the correction' only after they have answered, never before.
    • Write each answer on the slip that already carries that person's number, so before and after sit on one slip.
    • Draw two bars on squared paper for the percentage saying true, before and after, and write the change in percentage points and in whole people underneath.
    Write down: The twenty after-answers on their numbered slips, the unreachable tally, both percentages, and the change in people as well as per cent.
    Finished when: Before and after exist on the same numbered slips, asked in identical words, and you can say how many people actually moved.
    Commonest mistake: Assuming that anybody you could not find has changed their mind. Count them as unreachable and show what your percentage becomes either way.

  10. Share and reflect

    60 minutes
    Publish the finding, defend it to real people, and record honestly what the correction did and did not do.
    • Deliver the defence out loud in under three minutes to three people who sign and date the page, or record it on a borrowed phone.
    • Read the one-page explainer to three people the claim affected and write down what each of them said.
    • Hand the before-and-after chart to the expert you interviewed with one question: what would you have checked that I did not.
    • Write plainly whether the correction moved anybody, including if it moved nobody, and name every reason it might not have.
    • Complete the relations ledger with ten entries — names for the expert, the peers and the people you shared with, numbers for anybody whose belief you recorded.
    Write down: The defence signed and dated by its witnesses, the one-page explainer, and the relations ledger holding ten relationships with dates and replies.
    Finished when: Ten relationships are logged with dates and replies, and the after-percentage is stated aloud whether it fell, held or rose.
    Commonest mistake: Reporting only the people who agreed with you afterwards. The tally of twenty is the result; the compliments are not.

What the student hands in

Nine pieces. Together they are the folder a parent can sit down and read.

1. Question cardOne card naming the claim in the words people use, the groups it circulates in as code letters, and the question: how many of twenty believe it, and what has it cost them.
2. Expert interview packFive written questions for a journalist, fact-checker or pharmacist, your three checks attached as one page, the date and channel of the request, and the reply recorded word for word.
3. Evidence logThe seven-day tally of forwards, the check table with source, method and date for all three checks, and twenty coded belief answers before and after. No name sits beside any belief.
4. Failure logThe check that led nowhere, the two sources that turned out to be one, the people you could not reach again, the group that turned hostile and what you did, all dated.
5. The buildThe sixty-second correction itself — voice note, card or short video with its source on the final frame — together with the two-bar chart of belief before and after.
6. One-page explainerOne page a neighbour reads in ninety seconds: the claim, how it was checked three ways, the percentage who believed it, what it cost, the correction, and the after number.
7. Identity cardA name and a one-line promise for the correction, so people can ask for it by name, plus the single sentence you want repeated when somebody forwards the claim again.
8. Relations ledgerTen entries with dates and replies: one journalist or pharmacist, three people the claim affected, three peers who checked your checking, three people you sent the correction to who answered.
9. Defence videoUnder three minutes on camera: the claim, the three checks and their dates, the before percentage, the correction, the after percentage, and the limits you accept without argument.

The expert they have to find

Ten logged relationships are required before this project can be marked. One of them is an expert, and this is who.

A journalist or a fact-checker who publishes verification work. If your claim is a remedy, a pharmacist or a doctor is the right person to ask. If it is a claim about how something works, a science teacher will take it apart with you.

How to find one

Newspapers print a newsroom desk telephone number and an email on the masthead, and press clubs list working reporters. A pharmacy counter is open all day and the pharmacist has already heard your claim from somebody. A hospital's public-relations office will pass a request to a doctor. Search LinkedIn for 'fact-check' or 'verification' plus your city.

What to say

Hello, my name is [name]. One claim is being forwarded around my family and neighbourhood groups every week. I checked it against three sources and then asked twenty people whether they believe it. Most said yes. Could you spare fifteen minutes this week to tell me what my checking missed? I will send five questions first.

What to ask

  • When a claim reaches you, what is the first check you run, and why that one before any other?
  • How do you decide that two sources are genuinely independent rather than quoting the same original post?
  • What do you do with a claim you cannot prove either way, and how do you publish that without helping it spread?
  • Which corrections have you seen actually change what people forward, and what did those have in common?
  • When a group turns hostile at being corrected, what do you do next, and what have you learnt not to do?

The defence

Eight of the twenty marks. A student who cannot answer these has not finished, however good the artefact is.

  • Would the belief have dropped anyway without your correction, and how do you know?
  • You called your three sources independent. Show me they do not all trace back to one original post.
  • Twenty people, and you chose them. Who did you leave out, and which way would including them push your percentage?
  • The same claim comes back next month in slightly different words. What did your sixty seconds actually achieve, in numbers?

How far a student can take it

starterYou log seven days of forwards, check the most repeated claim against three sources, ask twenty people the same fixed words, and put your questions to one journalist, fact-checker or pharmacist.
practitionerYou choose the twenty yourself and defend who they are, cite every check to its page and its date, and make one chart a stranger reads correctly without you standing beside it.
researcherYou fix the question wording and the checking method in writing before collecting anything, justify twenty rather than five, and quantify what refusals and unreachable people do to your percentage.
contributorYou set your finding against published fact-checks of the same claim, defend your checking method to a working fact-checker who disagrees, and publish your coded data and every check openly.

If you want to go further

Run the identical question on twenty people in a second neighbourhood that never saw your correction, and set the two after-percentages side by side.

When it goes wrong

  • If nobody will answer your question - then stand at a shop counter at a busy hour, ask the shopkeeper and the next four customers, and record every refusal as a refusal.
  • If your before and after look the same - then report that as the finding, check first how many of the twenty actually saw the correction, and write that number beside the result.
  • If you cannot check the claim properly - then record it as unproven rather than false, say plainly which check you could not complete, and correct only the part you can prove.
  • If you run out of time - then re-ask ten of the twenty rather than dropping the baseline, and state the smaller after-sample on the chart itself.

Before you start

Safety and consent.
  • Never name the person who sent a message, and never screenshot a private chat with a name, a number or a profile picture visible. Type the claim out in your own words and give every group a code letter instead of its name.
  • Never test a claim about religion, politics, a sect, an ethnic group or a named person. Choose a practical, local claim instead: a remedy, a price rumour, a scam, a claim about a school, a water supply or an electricity bill.
  • Never accuse anybody of lying. The message is wrong; the person who forwarded it is not attacked, not named and not corrected in public. Never publish anyone's belief with their name attached — beliefs live against code numbers only.
  • The correction is polite, sourced and short. If a group turns hostile, stop posting there at once, do not argue back, leave, and write down what was said and what you did. That write-up is a finding and it is marked as one.

Run this with a class

Both booklets are free and complete — all twelve projects, 240 written steps, either route. The first year costs a school nothing, including training one teacher.

Get the booklets, free Talk to us

The other eleven

← The Rule Nobody FollowsHow often a real rule is actually kept The Trigger →What really sets off one small habit

See all twelve projects →