Listen, it happens.

If you or a family member have ever shared a story online only to realise later it wasn’t quite what it seemed, you’re definitely not alone.

From viral misinformation to convincing AI-generated deepfakes, navigating the internet has become increasingly complicated — and sometimes it can be hard to know what to trust. That’s exactly the issue being tackled in an upcoming workshop in Cork that aims to give people practical tools to recognise disinformation and think more critically about what they see online.

The session, titled Fake news, AI, and social media: How to recognise dis/misinformation, will take place as part of the Lifelong Learning Festival at the UCC Library.

Learn how to assess your news sources 

Running from 3pm to 4.30pm on Tuesday, April 28th, the workshop is open to anyone who wants to better understand the modern digital information landscape — which, let’s be honest, most of us could probably use a bit of help navigating.

These days we’re constantly bombarded with headlines, social media posts, videos and AI-generated content. While some of it is valuable and informative, a lot of it is misleading, exaggerated, or completely fabricated. The workshop will explore the challenges of navigating this huge stream of information and offer simple approaches that can help people assess sources more critically.

Attendees will learn practical techniques for spotting misinformation, evaluating whether a source is trustworthy, and developing a more proactive mindset when consuming information online.

It’s the kind of skillset that’s becoming increasingly important for everyone — whether you’re scrolling through social media, reading the news, or trying to work out if that viral story in the group chat is actually true.

The event will take place in the Seminar Room on the Q Floor of University College Cork Library, and registration is required to attend.

For anyone who has ever wondered how some people seem to fall for obviously fake stories — or worried about whether they might be fooled themselves — it could be a very useful hour and a half.