The Misguided Toolkit
Free tools for
thinking clearer.
What we believe is shaped by who we are and who we surround ourselves with. These free, research-backed tools help you navigate misinformation, understand your own biases, and protect your attention online, so you can engage with information more intentionally. Grounded in the research behind Misguided.
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Understand yourself
2 tools
Your identities and networks shape what you believe more than you might realize. These tools make those influences visible.
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Identity Map
Visualize the social identities you hold, and recognize how they can influence what you believe and how you interpret information.
Our identities act as lenses. Seeing them clearly is the first step to thinking more independently.
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Network Diversity Audit
Assess how diverse your close network really is, and understand how the people around you shape the information that reaches you.
A homogeneous network is an invisible bias. This tool helps you see it.
02
Check before you engage
2 tools
Not everything online deserves your attention, and not everything that grabs it is true. These tools help you decide what to ignore and how to check what's left.
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Critical Ignoring Companion
Decide whether an online comment deserves a reply or is an attention trap, and fact-check a claim using lateral reading before you engage.
Knowing what to ignore is a skill. This tool helps you build it.
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Lateral Reading Companion
Paste a claim, headline, or link and see whether it's already been fact-checked. Then get walked through who's behind it, where it started, and who else is saying it. Available as a browser extension, too.
Lateral reading is what fact-checkers actually do. No verdict handed to you, just the trail.
For educators
Use these tools in your classroom.
Each tool maps directly to core concepts in media literacy, sociology, and social psychology. They're already being used in university courses, and they're free for any educator to adopt.
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Pair the Identity Map with a unit on social psychology or motivated reasoning.
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Use the Network Diversity Audit to open a discussion on echo chambers and social networks.
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Assign the Critical Ignoring Companion before a class on media literacy or social media.
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Have students run a claim through the Lateral Reading Companion to practice source evaluation and lateral reading.
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Use the full toolkit as a running thread through a course on misinformation or media literacy.
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