9 July 2018

Topic of the Month July 2018 – Fake News

A few weeks ago, Chloe, 13, shared a hoax story about the alleged death of a favourite actor, Sylvester Stallone.

"I thought it was real and shared it with family members. A lot of people were quite upset," she says.

When the truth emerged that Sylvester Stallone was alive and well, Chloe says she felt stupid.  "I should have looked into it a bit more before posting," she adds.

Chloe is not alone, according to a report from a group of MPs which says that falling for fake news can harm children's "wellbeing, trust in journalism and democracy itself". The all-party parliamentary group on literacy heard evidence that fake news could make children more anxious, damage their self-esteem and skew their world view.  In research for the report, the National Literacy Trust showed more than 2,000 UK eight to 16-year-olds six news stories, two of which were fake, and asked them to identify which were real and which were not.

Only 2% got all six right.

Missing plane 'found'

When he was 13, Mitch spotted what he thought was a good news story on Twitter.  A missing airliner had been found and everyone on board was safe.  There were pictures, he liked it and retweeted it and several of his friends did the same.

But within hours it became clear the story was fake, the picture was an old one which had been reposted and Mitch and his friends had been conned.  Now 16, he says he still remembers how upset he was "to find it wasn't true and the families hadn't found their loved ones".  He says he felt shocked, foolish and embarrassed.

Of the children questioned in the survey:

• Almost half were worried about their inability to tell which stories in their social media feeds were false and which were real 
• Almost two-thirds said fake stories made them trust the news less
• TV is still the most popular source of news according to the survey
• Three quarters watch TV news and 80% say they trust it 
• Almost half listen to radio news and 75% say they trust it

However, almost half of the secondary age pupils said they got news from social media, particularly Snapchat, and only about a quarter trusted what they read there.  All of this contributes to a culture of fear and uncertainty among young people, says the report.

Source: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-44454844

On the BBC Website is a challenge can you spot the fake news! Log in and try it;

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-43398486/can-you-spot-fake-news