Case 02 — Your first SIFT

Running the four SIFT moves on a real, currently-circulating claim, in order, without skipping ahead

1 March 2027

The hardest part of SIFT is not any individual step — it’s resisting the urge to skip straight to step four, tracing the claim back, because that’s the satisfying one. Stop and Investigate are boring and they’re where most of the method’s power actually lives.

Before the session#

Find one claim currently circulating that you have an opinion about but haven’t checked. Bring the link or screenshot, not your opinion.

In the session#

Working in pairs, run all four moves against the clock: two minutes per step, timed. You will want more time on step four. You don’t get it. The constraint is the point — SIFT is designed to work under exactly the time pressure that makes people skip it.

Afterwards#

Post your trace — what you found at each step, including dead ends — to the week’s discussion thread. A documented dead end is more useful to your classmates than a suspiciously tidy success.