Woman's Hour - How to help your child spot fake news online

Episode Date: August 4, 2020

Empowering schoolchildren to identify propaganda and distorted facts online

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BBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts. Hi, this is Jane Garvey with the Women's Hour Parenting Podcast and this edition is all about how you can help your children identify fake news on the internet. It's increasingly difficult to do and anybody with children will know what it's like when your children want to show you something or tell you something they've seen or heard. And you probably quite often will be horrified at what they've picked up,

because you know it to be utter drivel. But how do you tell them? Well, in this conversation, I talked to the editor of The Week Junior, Anna Bassi, and to Juliana von Reppert-Bismarck, the founder of Lie Detectors, a journalist-led news literacy project in Europe. Right, try this for size, first of all, from BBC Bite Size. I'd say that fake news has definitely left me confused. It's kind of like Chinese whispers, you know what I mean? Anyone can make anything. They can be totally anonymous for what they've created

and what they've put out into the world. You can't even have a proper opinion on something because you don't know what's real or fake. It can ruin people's lives. It does confuse me quite a lot. When you share it, then you're spreading that as well. That's a little snatch of BBC Bite Size on fake news. Anna Bassey, the editor of The Week Junior,

I guess those of us who've got children of any age, really, are quite familiar with that scenario. They come downstairs squealing with some indignation or delight or horror at something they've seen and they believe it to be true and they show you. And our reaction is, what are you talking about? I imagine you've been there, Anna, a few times yourself. Well, I have. I mean, professionally and personally, I've got children of my own so um I'm quite used to a child coming downstairs and telling me about something that they've seen on Instagram or read on TikTok and then we um you know I guess because of the nature of my job and working on a current

affairs magazine for children um a lot of what I do every day is sort of digging down into stories and trying to work out if it is actually true, if we've got our facts right. And it's just so important that parents and children understand how to critically assess the information that they're receiving. Yeah, easier said than done, though, isn't it? Was there a particular incident, Juliana, that sparked your interest in this? Yes, so I set up lie detectors really primarily because I've been talking to young people while I was researching a documentary. And one of the conversations I had really struck me as being fundamental.

And it was with a 13 year old school child from a very sort of middle class background, academics as parents, very bad phone that was only pay as you go. And at 13 years old, she told me, this was back in 2016, in October 2016, she said, even though, you know, they were living in Europe, and we're neither old enough nor in the right place to be voting that if they could, half of her school friends would be voting for Donald Trump rather than Hillary Clinton. And this really sort of struck me. And I said, why? And so she forwarded me by phone, this really gruesome bit of fake news, absolutely classic bit of troll writing and bad, you know, bad grammar, bad syntax saying how Hillary Clinton was assassinating all of these CIA agents and how by comparison, you know, Trump was by far the better option. And when I

asked her, where do you get this from? What's your source? She said, well, it's Instagram. And, you know, to me, I'm a trained journalist. I said, that's not a source. That's a photo app. And it really goes to the heart of, you know, this problem of disinformation with young children, because, you know, they're receiving these things. I remember very clearly this was actually a screenshot of an Instagram photo that was being shared on a WhatsApp chat group, and there were 491 little hearts underneath it, I remember. And it really made me think, you know, what's the point of all of these fact checkers, as important as they are, and how far can AI, artificial intelligence, penetrate this

when you're not talking about words, you're talking about pixels, and when this is not circulating on the platforms that we adults are familiar with, Facebook, Twitter, that sort of thing. But in fact, in the encrypted internet, this is what Mark Zuckerberg calls the digital living room, and I call it the digital bedroom, where children are on their own and it's important that they should be. And we don't know what they're seeing. We haven't got a clue. We should, of course, say that Twitter and Facebook have been accused of all sorts of things. They're echo chambers, essentially. I like Twitter and I follow lots of people I agree with. I also sometimes try to remember to follow people I don't agree with necessarily. Aren't we all part

of this, Juliana? Yes, of course we are. I mean, it's very interesting. When we go into classrooms, we often let the, you know, now these days we're doing it digitally. We let the children vote on whether they think particular pieces of information are true or not. And we watch them vote. And even at age 10, and we visit them until they're 15 years old, they are voting along with what their friends think and this is a very very natural and human instinct and this is why it's really important to tell why this matters why it's important to know things not just from your friend but to actually know whether it's true or not um so we often um actually ask

them what is this after we've shown them um various pieces of disinformation we say what do you call this and why is it there and it's very interesting the answers that we get because they'll say things like you know they won't necessarily say disinformation or propaganda or manipulation they'll come with their own words they'll come come and they'll say, this is bullying, this, or this is clickbait. Particularly the boys are very aware that you can make an awful lot of money out of sensationalist content online. And particularly the girls are aware that you can influence people's opinions by posting a nice or not so nice photo of somebody on your Snapchat or wherever it might be, whatever channel you're using. And if we can just divert that knowledge, that innate knowledge they have of the internet and of the influencing power of the internet into the world of news, then we can already achieve an awful lot. Anna, have you got evidence that there have been recent stories, heavily shared, widely circulated, that have duped children?

Oh, absolutely, definitely. And I think recently, really, particularly problematically, there's been a massive amount of misleading and harmful online content about COVID-19. So there've been lots and lots of stories that many, many people will have seen referring to cures for COVID or perpetuating conspiracy theories about vaccines, tests, links to 5G and so on. They've all been spread widely and they've been shared by people in quite high profile positions like Madonna, Lewis Hamilton, and obviously the President of the United States. And I think these, you know, particularly at the moment where, you know, there's such importance around the clarity of messaging around public health, making sure that people understand what they should and shouldn't be doing and making sure that young people understand the dangers to

themselves of not following the guidance we really can't afford for, you know, for untrue reports, for example, about the dangers of mask wearing to be so commonly shared and perpetuated. We can't. But what we also have to acknowledge is that these people who spread fake news have done their job because they have sown the seeds of doubt in all of us. I find myself questioning almost everything I see and hear now. So are they dangerously close to winning the whole thing, Anna? Well, no, I don't think they are. I mean, I think, you know, we I think that the good news is that everybody now is aware of the phrase fake news. So, you know, fake news isn't anything new. It's been around for a really long time. But obviously, it's it's a real problem these days when there are so many different sources of information. And I think it's just what it has done has raised the importance of critical thought and for, you know, for children and adults as well, to really think, like a journalist, really be curious about all the information that they are presented with, and to sort of think really carefully about where it's come from. You know, does it feel as though

it's a little bit off? Has it been written to elicit a certain response in a person? You know, we all have to critically examine the information we're given and see if it could be substantiated. To a degree, and I'm playing devil's advocate a bit here, we've always had newspapers that lean politically one way or the other, haven't we? This isn't as new as some people might have you believe. It's not new at all. I mean, I think fake news has been around forever

and certainly since the first printing press was invented. I think the problem now is that it is just that false information can be spread so quickly and so widely. So whereas it might have been limited to a local newspaper, it is now, you know, a false story can now be across the globe within minutes, if not seconds. And it's being done in a way that's so very difficult to track as well, because obviously it's not just on those platforms that are available to everybody. It is within WhatsApp groups and private messages. And this is why, you know,

this is why I think more and more every person, you know, adults and children, we have to take responsibility for the information that we are sharing to sort of make sure that we are confident that whatever news we share with others is actually true because otherwise we're all contributing to that problem and you know it's only going to get worse unless we start to sort of tighten our own behaviour up. I guess the danger Juliana is that the young people who are susceptible to all this at the

moment will not suddenly shrug it off and become questioning journalists, if you like. They'll simply carry on believing what they see is probably real and mistrusting the so-called mainstream media. And then, of course, they'll have a vote, won't they? Well, I wouldn't actually underestimate the ability of young people to learn new skills. And in fact, what we've seen is that they're unbelievably receptive, particularly now during this COVID time. I mean, there have been times where before we had to, you know, work quite hard to let school children know this is not just an adult problem. This is one that concerns you as well. And we've always worked really hard to use examples that are relevant to them, chain letters. They're very worried about

chain letters. But now very worried about chain letters. But now the interest is enormous. And when you give them tools, and the tools don't have to be that complicated, they really like to use them. I really like what Anna just said, you know, we all have to learn how to be, you know, miniature journalists, you know, the tools that we give them, they're not that complicated. You know, it's check who wrote this, check the link, does the link even work? What's the date? You know, is this shark who wrote this, check the link. Does the link even work? What's the date? You know, is this shark that's purportedly swimming down yet another highway after a hurricane? Is that not the same one that was being posted, you know, 10 years ago, which it probably is. And they really love being given these examples. And of course, we can't, you know,

people do identify with certain parts of disinformation. It's part of their identity. It's why conspiracy theories are so hard to unseat. But if we start very early, and we just give them these practical tools, regardless of what elections coming up, regardless of what the political debate is about, actually just using fun examples, they don't all have to be about politics. They don't have to be about religious tolerance. If you give them these basic tools, this critical reflex, then they're ready when something important does come along for them to check. Thank you very much. And that is something that teachers, and this is what we advocate so much about, at the moment teachers say they understand how important it is, but very few actually dare to address this issue. Juliana von Reppert-Bismarck from Lie Detectors and the editor of The Week Junior, Anna Bassi.

Thank you very much for listening to the Woman's Hour Parenting Podcast. And if there's a subject you'd like us to discuss, you can contact the programme, bbc.co.uk slash Woman's Hour. I'm Sarah Treleaven, and for over a year, I've been working on one of the most complex stories I've ever covered. There was somebody out there who was faking pregnancies. I started, like, warning everybody. Every doula that I know.

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