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5.0 out of 5 stars Critical Reading for All Ages
Reviewed in the United States on August 5, 2020
While this book is ostensibly written for young adults, it should be required reading for everyone. Otis shares fascinating anecdotes from history to demonstrate the enduring and pervasive nature of fake news, and then offers practical, actionable tips for identifying fake news today. Otis' tone is informative and smart and also accessible and entertaining — I laughed out loud more than once. This book should be part of the curriculum for all high school students, but will also benefit anyone wishing to escape the trap (and, perhaps, lure) of fake news.
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fake news social media must read highly recommend true or false cindy otis history of fake well written recommend this book reading this book examples informative students today cia events entertaining exercises facts learn
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5.0 out of 5 stars Entertaining and educational
Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on August 11, 2020
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Useful and entertaining for adults as well as teens. I particularly like the author's application of scientific principles of evidence to evaluation of written content. I think this will be very useful to both my science-loving students (many of whom don't get equally good grades in reading/writing classes) and my students who excel in reading/writing classes but aren't as attuned to logical analysis needed in Math and Science classes. The techniques and examples are clearly illustrated and the book is engaging. There are even sample exercises in the book! (I was told by Amazon today that copyright provision permits me to display a single page on a class-room sized screen to discuss the material BTW). Highly recommend for teachers who want to assign this book in Language Arts or Science classes...to offer individual students extra credit for reviewing this book...to parents for family review and discussion. One caveat - while the author uses historical fake news examples spanning Roman times to present....some examples from very current political events involve current politicians in office. A very few school administrators or parents "may" interpret the inclusion of these examples as some kind of bias for/against certain politicians. For this reason, I strongly suggest reviewing this book yourself before gifting it or assigning it to anyone...and make your own informed decision as to (A) which chapters or examples to discuss or (B) who would or would not be interested in reading this book.
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Reed Maxson
5.0 out of 5 stars A "must read"
Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on September 22, 2020
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For those who get most of their "news" through social media, this book should be on top of their reading list. I enjoyed reading the history of fake news, especially the section on some of our (United States) earlier politicians. I generally agree with the other 5 star reviews, but add this caveat: I bought the Kindle edition. My Kindle's screen is 6 inches (measured diagonally), and I found all of the screen captures, examples and exercises extremely difficult to read, even with a magnifying glass. The screen shots are simply too small, and there's no way to increase their size on my Kindle. After viewing several exercises with various magnifying glasses and lenses, I eventually skipped them. The author provides her answers in regular sized font, so the reader can get the gist of the exercises without doing them. But I feel slightly cheated in this regard.
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RJ
5.0 out of 5 stars One of the better books of 2020
Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on November 14, 2020
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I really liked this book. Very educational, well researched, fun to read, and the author has a good sense of humor at just the right moment. I highly recommend this book. In fact if you like to give books for Christmas, this would be the perfect one for anybody or everybody.

As an aside the author even inserted a little fake news herself when she called Hitler’s political party the “National Party.” We all know the name of the party was the ‘National Socialist Party.’ Also the author’s strong implication that NBC, the Washington Post, and the BBC are ‘politically neutral’ when clearly they are not.
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Amazon Customer
5.0 out of 5 stars Relevant about Irrelevant and the dangerous.
Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on April 12, 2022
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Actually has relevance, figure that one out!

Seriously though, we live in trying times.
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Jack
5.0 out of 5 stars Helpful steps in understanding misinformation
Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on September 11, 2020
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Separated into two main sections, True or False guides the reader through the history of propaganda and media hysteria to explanations of identifiable misinformation commonly found online. With her CIA background, Otis’ insight into investigation and recognition of false information is entertaining and educational. The chapters on biases and cognitive dissonance, along with how to fight back were especially impactful. The book is easy to follow and includes several pictures and visual aides. Teenagers and adults alike would benefit from reading, especially in our modern age of social media and entertainment news.
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R. Schuneman
5.0 out of 5 stars A delightful book conveying an important message in an accessible way; a must read!
Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on August 15, 2020
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First off, this book was not what I expected. I thought it would be a rather dry, academic read. It definitely was not! I was immediately drawn into it. I thought I was a relatively sophisticated consumer of news and media, but I had some blind spots this book helped me find. I had no idea how far back the history of fake news went and was both delighted and entertained while finding out. In short, this is a delightful book conveying an important message in an accessible way. I wholeheartedly recommend it.
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Grady Vandal
4.0 out of 5 stars Very Interesting
Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on June 21, 2021
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I thought the book was pretty good, the only thing I found was that a lot of the information is repeated a lot. Otherwise, very good book for today's world.
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B. Barna
5.0 out of 5 stars Masterclass in Spotting Disinformation
Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on November 1, 2020
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Unbelievably thorough but always readable, “True or False” covers the entire spectrum of bad information, why we fall for it, and what to do about the issue. I’m very familiar with many of these concepts and I still learned quite a bit. The material is broken down into easily digestible portions with a wealth of unexpected examples, including historical. And it’s tailor-made for classes at almost any level (middle-school or above), literally including small quizzes throughout. Highly recommended.
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Amazon Customer
5.0 out of 5 stars Well written
Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on May 31, 2021
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A well written book that had me from from the first chapter. I am happy that I can recognise fake news and what steps to take.
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OliverW8
5.0 out of 5 stars Entertaining and disquieting history of disinformation
Reviewed in Germany 🇩🇪 on September 7, 2020
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I had previously read about disinformation and smear campaigns by prospective senators in ancient Rome, but I never quite made the connection to our more recent Western history until reading this excellent book. Thomas Jefferson, one of the prime intellects of his time, surreptitiously publishing bald-faced lies about his opponent, and in turn being outed as having a long-standing affair and children with one of his slaves? Another one of my heros has tumbled off his pedestal... Poor, clueless Marie Antoinette the unfortunate victim of yellow press style tactics (by way of so-called "libelles", which gave rise to the English word libel) painting her as a jaded strumpet and an enemy of the French people - the fact that I still believed the quote "let them eat cake" to have actually come from her is a testament to the persistence of false information. What to speak of now, when a tweet containing completely and verifiably false information is published and has garnered 2.4 million views by the time it's taken down! It still strikes me as strange that as a people we hold the concept of TRUTH in such high regard, yet spend most of our time either fabricating or consuming lies to convince ourselves and others of our opinion. Be that as it may, this book is certainly a great guideline for researching the veracity of information and to at least become aware of how one's own biases skew perception. Should become mandatory reading in schools around the world!
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