The Sift: Less scrolling time for teens?

An educator's guide
to news literacy

Aug. 31, 2026

Note: The Sift is off next week for Labor Day. We'll be back in your inbox on Monday, Sept. 14.

In this issue

Less scrolling time for kids? | RumorGuard slides

Daily Do Now slides

A week’s worth of do-nows, just for you.

Top picks

Here are the latest news literacy topics and tips on how to integrate them into your classroom.

Teen accounts on Instagram and Facebook will have two-hour time limits.

1. New safety measures coming to Facebook, Instagram

Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, has agreed to add stronger safety measures for teenagers and to pay up to $18 billion to 48 states in a legal settlement, the Associated Press reported.

• Social media addiction: In their lawsuit against Meta, a group of state attorneys general alleged that Facebook and Instagram are designed to be addictive to children and endanger young people’s mental health. They also accused the company of collecting data on children under 13 (anyone over 13 is allowed to open an account).
• Platform changes: In the next six months, teen accounts will have default time limits, app notifications turned off during school hours, features such as “like” counts disabled on posts, stronger age verification and the choice to opt out of algorithmically tailored feeds.
• Harmful design: This proposed settlement is the latest in a string of lawsuits against tech companies. Earlier this year, the verdict in a landmark trial found Meta and Google, which owns YouTube, harmed a young user with addictive design features that led to anxiety and depression.

💬 Discuss:

• Should tech companies be liable for harming young users through addictive design? Why or why not?
• What features on social media apps are designed to keep you scrolling?
• The new changes include an option to see social media feeds that are not personalized by algorithms. What might that look like? Would this be less addictive?

💡Idea: Use the “Reflect” slide in Week 2 of the Daily Do Now resource to further explore this topic.

⭐ NLP Resources:

• Interactive lesson: “Introduction to Algorithms”
• Infographic: “Seven Steps for Staying Sharp Online” (also available in Spanish)

🔗 Related:

• “Teens Are Divided on New Meta Restrictions” (The New York Times)

2. Wall Street Journal publishes AI-generated guest column

The opinion section of The Wall Street Journal, which operates separately from the newsroom, published a guest column, or op-ed, by billionaire investor Stanley Druckenmiller on Aug. 24. Soon after, readers suspected it was AI-generated.

• AI writing: Journalists followed up and asked Druckenmiller about his AI usage. Druckenmiller told NOTUS: “I write everything using AI now for the same reason I use a calculator when I do math problems.”
• No disclosure: Druckenmiller’s opinion column did not include a note or label indicating it was AI-generated. 
• Standards: The Journal’s editorial page editor wrote a defense of the op-ed, saying it didn’t violate standards. While opinion writers on staff must write original work, the question of using AI is “more complicated for outside contributors,” like Druckenmiller, the editor noted. He compared Druckenmiller’s use of AI to the longstanding practice among contributors to hire speechwriters to draft opinion pieces. Although Druckenmiller used AI, the ideas in the column were his, according to the editor.

💬 Discuss:

• Should news outlets allow guest opinion content to be generated using AI?
• If a newsroom does allow AI assistance for outside contributors, should editors disclose this AI use for their audiences? If so, how?
• What’s the difference between an opinion column and a news article? 
• If you were in charge of the opinion section at a news organization, what would your AI policy look like? Would it be different for journalists on staff versus outside contributors who might not be professional writers? How would you ensure an AI policy still follows journalism standards?

⭐ NLP Resources:

• Slides: “AI-generated news or not?”
• Infographic: “6 things to know about AI”
• Lesson plan: “AI or not?”

🔗 Related:

• “Facing a ‘deluge’ from AI, this publication will only take pitches by phone” (Nieman Lab)
• “AI writing has already begun to appear on the opinion pages” (Semafor)
• “Student Journalists: AI Is Changing Our Work — And Not For the Better” (The 74)

3. Student cartoonist censored

A Nebraska school district recently adopted a policy that allows administrators to review student media before it’s published — a move that concerns student press freedom advocates.

• Student cartoon: The policy comes months after high school student Aidan McClaren drew a political cartoon for his student newspaper critical of Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids. School administrators removed it from the student news site and blocked his subsequent opinion piece about the experience, according to the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression.
• Student campaign: McClaren and his peers approached the school board asking for the cartoon to be reinstated and for a school press freedom policy that would give student journalists and faculty advisers editorial independence — without prior administrative review. 
• Past cases: School administrators pointed to Supreme Court cases that give school officials broader authority to regulate student speech. However, Tinker v. Des Moines, the Supreme Court’s historic 1969 decision, also ruled that public school students do not “shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate.”

💡 Idea: Have students analyze McClaren’s political cartoon (scroll down to the second image at this link). Then discuss the following questions.

💬 Discuss:

• Who should make editorial decisions about content in a student newspaper: students, teachers, parents, or district administrators?
• What can a cartoon do or express that text alone cannot? Why do political cartoons elicit strong responses?
• Should student journalists have the same First Amendment rights as professional journalists?

⭐ NLP Resources:

• Interactive lesson: “Power in Art: The Watchdog Role of Editorial Cartoonists”
• Recorded webinar: “Power in Art: Elevate Student Voice with Editorial Cartooning”
• Interactive lesson: “The First Amendment”

These interactive slide decks help students think carefully and critically about viral claims in the digital age.

AI video falsely shows reckless bike rider getting pushed to ground 

❌ NO: This is not a genuine video of a bicycle rider being pushed to the ground after swerving too close to people on a sidewalk.

✅ YES: This is an AI-generated video.

⭐ NewsLit takeaway:

What was your first reaction after watching this video? Did the biker get what they deserved? Social media posts often go viral when they confirm our preconceived biases. Check out these Google Slides for tips on avoiding being led by confirmation bias.

Misleading claims over vote-counting times circulate again

✅ YES: Florida generally counts its votes much more quickly than California.

❌ NO: This is not indicative of voter fraud.

✅ YES: Election officials in each state decide vote-counting procedures, and California allows a longer period for counting mail-in ballots than Florida does.

⭐ NewsLit takeaway:

Purveyors of misinformation have repeatedly attempted to connect lengthy vote counts to voter fraud. While these claims have been debunked numerous times over the years, they continue to gain traction online. Check out these Google Slides for a few tips on spotting these false zombie election fraud rumors.

➕ Odd gestures. Cloned voices. Strange writing. These are the signs to detect deepfake videos, including recent ones of late-night TV hosts like Jimmy Kimmel spreading on social media.

➕ Influencers who endorse political candidates might be sharing an authentic opinion – or they might be doing so because the campaign paid them to do it. This new form of political advertising is tricky to detect, because federal regulations don’t require influencers to disclose payments.

➕ Could the 2026 midterms be called “the first chatbot election”? One nonpartisan policy institute thinks so, and recently tested chatbots on election falsehoods. The results were mixed: Most did a decent job resisting election misinformation but struggled with identifying AI-generated visuals.

➕ Sharing your secrets with ChatGPT? Those chats could become public record if they end up in a legal proceeding or court case.

➕ How far do journalists go to protect their sources? For investigative journalist Catherine Herridge, refusing to disclose her sources’ identities led to an $800 daily fine for being in contempt of court. Fox News, her former employer, is supporting her case and covering her legal expenses.

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Your weekly issue of The Sift is created by Susan Minichiello, Dan Evon, Peter Adams, Hannah Covington and Pamela Brunskill. It is edited by Lourdes Venard and Mary Kane.

You’ll find teachable moments from our previous issues in the archives. Send your suggestions and success stories to thesift@newslit.org.

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Check out NLP's Checkology virtual classroom, where students learn how to navigate today’s information landscape by developing news literacy skills.