Teaching kids about the dangers of fake news is fine as a starting point
India currently has a very serious fake news problem, particularly through WhatsApp groups, that has already led to the lynching of several dozen people due to rumors of child kidnappers spread via the social network and has even prompted the authorities in the state of Tripura to shutdown internet access for 48 hours.
WhatsApp has more than 200 million users in India, its most important market in the world, but on July 3 was required by the government to take immediate action and stop the spread of this type of rumors. The company said its encryption system made it impossible to monitor user activity and that collective action by government and society was necessary to educate people about social networks.
Some schools in the southern state of Kerala have begun teaching children about fake news and to be more skeptical about what they read on social networks. Teachers are working to help children identify fake news and to be aware of the dangers of helping to spread it in a country where the smartphone is now one of the main news sources for many poorly educated people and that is often posted by influential figures via huge WhatsApp groups.
Kerala’s approach is limited in that it is top-down: teachers explain fake news to pupils, illustrating it with specific examples. This vertical approach has the advantage of quick to implement, as a way of addressing short-term issues, with children then explaining what they have been taught to their families. A more sustainable method would be to deal with the issue horizontally: to encourage critical thinking. It will only be when we teach children to take responsibility for managing information, and when we do this horizontally, that we will produce a generation capable of understanding how information is spread on the social networks and why some people are interested in spreading lies and misinformation.
Technology has allowed us to create a simple means of communication accessible to all, endowing it with mechanisms that make it very attractive; yet for some absurd reason rooted in how we adopt technology, we have decided not to teach children and young people in schools about this technology and the consequences of its use, other than a few warnings that children naturally tend to ignore. The best way to enable children to use the Internet safely is not by inviting guests to their classes to warn them about the “terrible dangers” of the internet, but instead about how to use the internet properly to stay informed about all aspects of life. The best way to educate critical thinking is through more technology, empowering students so they can find the right information about any topic, while monitoring the process properly to teach them what information is reliable and what is not. We need fewer textbooks, fewer single sources of information, typically used for indoctrination, and more search engines, more contrasted sources, more verification and more procedures to help find the information they need.
The vertical approach within the limited context of a school’s curriculum is a short term solution that can help draw attention to an issue or lay the foundations for developing it further, but the real strategy must be horizontal, practical and applied to all subjects in the curriculum, at all levels. Without that change of mentality in education, society will remain vulnerable to manipulation by fake news.
(En español, aquí)
