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AI fakes, clickbait, disinformation – here are 10 timeless tests for telling truth from nonsense.
It has never been harder to tell truth from nonsense. AI-generated images, faked audio, clickbait, "alternative facts," organized disinformation – how do you know what's actually true?
The problem is old; only the tools are new. In 1835, a respected New York paper convinced readers an astronomer had spotted winged creatures on the moon. In 1948, the Chicago Tribune ran "Dewey Defeats Truman" over a man who'd just lost. The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, a forgery, did enormous damage because no one asked how they knew it was real. Even the Talmud records attempts about fabricating facts.
Jewish law developed tools for this problem thousands of years ago. A Torah court exists to determine truth, and the Talmud, later codified by Maimonides (Rambam) in his Mishneh Torah, lays out detailed rules for judging credibility. None of them is foolproof alone, but together they're a solid guide. Here are ten:
A witness may testify only to what he personally saw or knew; the Torah defines a witness as someone who "has seen or learned of" the matter (Leviticus 5:1). The Talmud requires testimony "from their mouths, not from their writing" (Ketubot 20a), and Rambam is blunt: it's forbidden to testify about anything "unless one saw it with his own eyes or heard it with his own ears." Even a reliable person's hearsay doesn't count (Hilchot Edut 17:1; Hilchot Sanhedrin, ch. 20).
A named person describing what he witnessed beats an anonymous tip, and firsthand beats secondhand. "Sources familiar with the matter" deserve real caution.
"A case is established by the testimony of two witnesses" (Deuteronomy 19:15). One account is a start; two independent ones are worth taking seriously, though they can still both be wrong. The witnesses shouldn't share the same bias or have coordinated, and their accounts must agree on the essentials, though small differences are fine. Think of it like checking a second clock when you're not sure the first is right: if they match, you trust them; if not, you find a third.
Same with news – when two outlets on opposite sides independently report the same core facts, that agreement means something. Ten outlets echoing one wire story is still just one source.
A Torah court doesn't just accept testimony, it cross-examines. The command to "inquire and investigate and question thoroughly" (Deuteronomy 13:15) becomes, in the Mishnah, specific questions about the time, place, and details of any event (Sanhedrin 40a). Rambam adds that "the more the judge questions the witnesses, the more praiseworthy it is" (Hilchot Edut 1:4, 1:6).
Liars offer fewer details because every specific is one more thing that can be checked. A detailed account is harder to fake and harder for two people to match; a vague story -- no names, dates, or places -- earns suspicion for exactly that reason.
Testimony has to be the kind of thing that could, in principle, be proven false. The Torah describes "scheming witnesses" caught in a lie and given the punishment they tried to inflict on someone else (Deuteronomy 19:16-19). The Talmud rules that testimony which can't be falsified isn't testimony at all (Sanhedrin 41a).
Apply that to what you read. Ask: how can we know this is true? How can this claim be tested or verified? If there's no obvious answer, be skeptical. If there is one, it should show up in the story, or at least in a follow-up. Otherwise, suspicion is warranted.
The Torah tells judges to "hear out your fellow men" (Deuteronomy 1:16), and in a verse the Sages read as a warning against one-sided reports (Exodus 23:1). The Talmud is explicit: a judge may not hear one party before the other is present (Sanhedrin 7b), and Rambam codifies this (Hilchot Sanhedrin 21:7).
For a reader, that's a fast filter: did the outlet actually reach the person it's accusing and print their response? A story that lets the accused respond is more credible than a one-sided narrative. If only one side speaks, you're reading an argument, not a report.
Not all sources are equal. "Do not join hands with the wicked to be a corrupt witness," says the Torah (Exodus 23:1) -- a known wrongdoer is disqualified. The Talmud excludes people with "no ordinary occupation," and thus little real stake in society (Sanhedrin 24b). Someone caught lying once (a "proven liar") stays under suspicion. Even someone who carries himself without basic dignity is viewed with skepticism (Edut 11:5).
Unestablished outlets, obscure accounts, and anonymous pranksters with nothing to lose generally shouldn't be trusted. A source with a reputation and real accountability beats an anonymous one that can invent freely and vanish.
Maybe the most useful test of all. Rambam writes: "Whenever a person stands to benefit from his testimony, he may not give it, for it is as if he is testifying about himself" (Hilchot Edut 15:1). The flip side is powerful: when someone says something that hurts their own interest, it becomes far more believable, precisely because it costs them. "A person's own admission counts like a hundred witnesses" (Kiddushin 65b). The related principle of migo -- roughly, "if he wanted to lie, he could have told a better story" (Bava Batra 31a) -- makes the same point: a woman who says "I was married, but I'm now divorced" is believed, since she could have stayed silent about the marriage entirely (Ketubot 22a).
Applied to news: a claim that cuts against the outlet's own leanings carries extra weight; one that flatters what the outlet already believes deserves extra doubt. A right-leaning outlet criticizing the right, or praising the left, is more credible than the reverse -- and the same logic runs the other way for a left-leaning outlet.
The one making the claim carries the burden, not the one denying it. The Talmud states it flatly: "whoever wants to take from his fellow must bring proof" (Bava Kamma 46b), based on the verse "whoever has a dispute shall approach them" with his case (Exodus 24:14). Rambam builds much of his law of claims on this principle (Hilchot To'en veNit'an).
When there's an accusation and a denial, look for the accuser's evidence; without it, the charge shouldn't be believed. A serious accusation doesn't become true because it was said confidently, repeated often, or never rebutted. No evidence, no credibility.
"Judge your fellow with righteousness," says the Torah (Leviticus 19:15), which the Talmud reads as an instruction to give people the benefit of the doubt (Shevuot 30a). The Mishnah puts it plainly: "judge every person favorably" (Avot 1:6). When the picture is incomplete, lean toward the accused.
There's a striking follow-up: in a capital case, if every judge voted to convict with not one dissenting voice, the defendant was acquitted (Sanhedrin 17a). Total unanimity wasn't reassuring -- it flagged that no one had argued the other side.
Carry that into the news: when everyone says the same thing in the same words, and no one can find a single point of disagreement, that seamless agreement is sometimes reason to pause.
"People do not lie about something bound to be disclosed," the Talmud observes (Rosh Hashanah 22b). Rambam eases the usual proof requirements when a claim will surely be verified, since a witness won't lie about something a quick check would expose (Hilchot Geirushin 13:29).
This cuts both ways. A big, public, easily checked claim -- an event thousands supposedly saw, a document anyone can pull up, a quote on the record -- is less likely to be pure invention, because the lie would collapse the moment someone looked. But the same logic exposes fakes: if a "bombshell" would obviously have left a mountain of traces and none exist, that absence is the giveaway.
Jewish law holds that a person is "too close to himself" (adam karov etzel atzmo) to judge his own case -- we're all biased where our own stake is involved. The lesson is humbling: the source isn't the only one with an agenda. You have one too. The story that feels obviously true often feels that way because it confirms what you already believed -- which is exactly when these tests matter most.
None of this is a guarantee. Witnesses can agree on a lie, respected sources can fail, details can be invented. These are guidelines, not proofs. But run a claim through them -- Who actually saw it? Is it independently corroborated? Did we hear the other side? Where's the accuser's evidence? -- and far more often than not, you'll land closer to the truth than the casual reader.
