Celebrity death hoaxes happen from time to time — in fact, one of the first big viral pieces of web fakery was a 2001 report that Britney Spears had died in a car crash. So when we see news that a celebrity has died, it's good to be cautious.
How do you do this? Well, consider this report that "Keanu Reeves is dead."
Is it true? If it was, we'd expect there to be lots of news stories about it. So we check.
What do we find? The top stories about Keanu Reeves are about him making a surprise stop to sign a fan's yard sign. Doesn't sound very dead! Just to be sure, we search for Keanu Reeves dead and the only thing that comes up are stories about how a video game with "Death" in the title almost featured Reeves.
Conclusion: Keanu Reeves is not dead.
Next up: Using fact-checks from news search