In this final thrilling episode before your kids earn their PhoneSmart Licence, the bonds of friendship are tested to the limit by a deep fake story that has the whole town in a frenzy. A gripping tale to help teach your kids to understand what fake news is and its potential risks. Also give them the skills to use search engines and social media to verify information.
Give your kids the skills
- To understand how online advertising works.
- To use the social networks properly as an information source.
- To be able to spot fake news and sponsored content.
- Understand the dangers of deepfake technology.
- To use online tools to verify information.
The wonderful and the worrisome
28%
of children are unsure if what they see online is true.
Source: Internet Matters, A Vision for Media Literacy, June 2024
65%
of parents feel concerned about the increasing use of generative AI and how it could impact the life and future of their child.
Source: UK Safer Internet Centre: Safer Internet Day 2024 Report
48%
of young people think changing technology is making it harder for them to control who can access information about them online and are worried that social media companies know too much about them.
Source: UK Safer Internet Centre: Safer Internet Day 2024 Report
Simple ways to support your child
The best way to prevent your child being affected by fake news is to develop their critical digital skills. To help your child spot fake news, you can tell them to:
- Read the whole article as headlines can be deliberately misleading
- Use fact checking sites such as fullfact.org and snopes.com
- Look for spelling mistakes and other errors in the content and see what other sites it links to
- Wait for a couple of days to see what others think if they’re not sure whether something is real or fake
If your child has been affected by fake news or you need more help and information then, please visit.