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Trace the Information: Did a Canadian TikToker cause a cucumber shortage in Iceland?

SKILL: Trace the Information

DIFFICULTY: Simple

SUBJECT(S): General, Politics/Current Events

Students will trace the information in a tweet to learn how effective a single video can be. While a viral video by a Canadian food vlogger did have a major impact on Iceland’s supply of cucumbers, the country’s government is not too concerned about it.

Related Lesson

CTRL-F Lesson 4: Trace the Information (sign-in required)

Link to Example

Iceland is facing a cucumber shortage thanks to TikTok

Background

Logan Moffitt, known as ‘Cucumber Guy’ to his social media followers, is a 23-year-old Canadian living in Ottawa, who became famous for his Asian-inspired cucumber salad recipes. He boasts more than 6 million followers on TikTok, where he is most active.



About the Example

This tweet by @foodandhome_sa claims that ‘Iceland is facing a cucumber shortage thanks to TikTok’, and that a Canadian influencer is to blame. The tweet also links to an article from their website, foodandhome.co.za. 

Food & Home is an outlet dedicated to food-related news, according to their Twitter bio. However, it does not have a Wikipedia entry we can use to check its reputation. The article provides links to several videos by Logan Moffitt, the Canadian influencer it accuses of causing shortages in Iceland, and links to an article by Deutsche Welle, which confirms the story.

You’ve probably never heard of Deutsche Welle before, but a quick Wikipedia search tells us that it’s a publicly-funded news outlet in Germany. If we want to find more information we can also do a quick keyword search – for example, “Iceland cucumber shortage” – to find numerous reputable outlets reporting the story.



Activities

  1. Show students the tweet and have them summarize the claim.
  2. Have students click through to the Food & Home article. Ask them to identify the name of the source to try to use Wikipedia to learn more about its reputation (Note: there is no Wikipedia entry for Food & Home).
  3. Have students click through to Deutsche Welle’s coverage of this story by clicking the link in the first paragraph naming the outlet. If students are unfamiliar with the source, they can check its reputation using Wikipedia. Guiding questions:
    • Is this claim mostly true, mostly false, or something else? Explain your reasoning.
    • In what ways is the Deutsche Welle article different from the Food & Home reporting? In what ways are the articles similar?


Review and Discuss Key Concepts (optional)

Review the following concepts: 

Reporting on reporting: When a media organization or site takes original reporting from one or more other source(s), and creates a new story based on the old one(s). Often in the process of re-reporting, key context is left out, information exaggerated, and the risk of error or misrepresentation is increased. 

Clickbait: a headline or image that is designed to entice users to click the link to learn more about that content. Clickbait headlines are often distorted, exaggerated or otherwise misleading.  



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