For Fact’s Sake podcast: How did ‘fake news’ cause Scotland’s witch trials?

On for Fact’s Sake this week we’re taking a look back to some historical misinformation – Scotland’s witch trials.

Ali and Paul speak to Dr Zoe Venditozzi, a writer and teacher who presents the Witches of Scotland podcast. She campaigns for posthumous pardons for those prosecuted for witchcraft in Scotland.

We spoke about Scotland’s witch trials, how the persecution was led from the top, and the parallels between the ‘fake news’ that drove women to be persecuted then and today’s moral panics.

Elsewhere on the pod, Ali looks at migration statistics, and we dig into ‘detox’ trends on social media.

Show notes:

• Listen to all the episodes of the excellent Witches of Scotland podcast here.
• Find out more about the campaign here.
• Logically Facts have written a piece about ‘detox baths’ here.

Ferret Fact Service (FFS) is a non-partisan fact checker, and signatory to the International Fact-Checking Network fact-checkers’ code of principles.

All the sources used in our checks are publicly available and the FFS fact-checking methodology can be viewed here.

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