Misinformation vs Disinformation Lesson

This week in library lessons I'm speaking about misinformation and disinformation with ages 11-12.

This session takes around thirty minutes, I have students at computers in the library to complete the tasks.

How it works:

I ask students to log in to the computers. Without any context I show them the following YouTube video (click on the image to see the video) on the big screen. 

Snowboarder Girl Chased by Bear

What's great about the video is that it's short (just over 1 minute) and it looks real enough that you might hear some gasps or see some jaw drops when it plays. 

I then ask students to do some research, I ask them to find out if this video is real or not. Not only that, I want the reasons why it's real or it isn't. 

Students will have their own opinions on the video and I take all of these in but I'm also looking for facts from reputable web sites about this video.

I'm also looking at how the students are searching for the video. Are they typing in unnecessarily long phrases into the search engine?

My goal is to explain to them about keywords and what is needed. The reality is all you need to get a hit on this video are the words bear snowboarder.

This surprises some students who have been typing in things like "Is the bear chasing snowboarder down the hill video real or fake?"

 I then go over some Google shortcuts like:

Using quotation marks to make Google search for an exact phrase.

Using the "site" function e.g. searching conspiracy theories site:bbc.co.uk to ensure all of the results are from the BBC. 

Spoiler: It the snowboarder v bear video is a fake and there are many giveaways:

The bear glitches out at a certain point

The noise the bear makes can be matched to a generic free bear sound on the internet

The bear's roar is a bit too loud to be picked up on the mic

Although there are bears in this region of Japan (where the video was actually taken) they don't look like the bear in the video.

My task for students is to find at least two different web sites using lateral reading.

Lateral reading is simply opening new tabs on your computer to research a topic. I want them to make a note of the web sites they have used to find out the truth.

What I've found is that many students simply read the comments on the YouTube video itself to tell me it's fake. Again, they've made their decision on its veracity but they haven't told me why.

Another thing I've noticed is that students will often Google their question and read the summarised version of their answer that Google often provides without actually clicking on a link or checking their source. This is a great opportunity to highlight the importance of clicking through and taking some time to read the article and finding out who is giving the source.

Once we've discussed the video and the sources the students have collected we look at which ones we think are reputable and why.

Again, it's a great opportunity to examine reputable sites that come up when searching for info on this video like:

Snopes

National Geographic

The Guardian 

Global News Canada

All of these comment on the video and discuss its veracity (or lack of). 

I then discuss the difference between misinformation and disinformation.

Misinformation is when you spread false information without realising it's false.

Disinformation is when you know something is untrue and you spread the information anyway. We discuss why people take part in disinformation:

Money

Political gain

Embarrass / Shame / Cancel someone or a group of people

Create distractions or disruption

All students also get these bookmarks which you can download below!