Teen algorithms | Brazil bans X

Artificial intelligence Journalism Misinformation

An educator's guide to
the week in news literacy

Sept. 9, 2024

Teach news literacy this week
Teen algorithms | Brazil bans X

Hi Sift reader,

It’s the start of a new school year, and we are thrilled to return to your inbox! You can expect our usual offerings to guide your teaching — recommended resources, debunked viral rumors and concise summaries of the week’s news literacy topics. Artificial intelligence, misinformation, press freedom and social media are just some of the few subjects we dig into.

We are also making some changes to our classroom-ready resources based on your feedback:

Near the top of each newsletter, next to the bell icon, you’ll find “Daily Do Now” slides. These are 5- to 10-minute activities to help get your students focused at the beginning of a class period — as soon as the bell rings!
We have a second set of slides you’ll find under the RumorGuard banner (further down). We expanded these slides to include more context and teachable takeaways based on each rumor example.

Please don’t hesitate to email us with any questions or feedback. Here’s to a year full of news literacy learning for your students! 😊

— The Sift team

Daily Do Now: Don’t miss this week’s classroom-ready resource.

Top picks

An illustration of a government building with thought bubbles above it; one with three exclamation points and the other with three question marks.

Disinformation campaigns from Russia, China and Iran have attempted to sway voters in the U.S. presidential election. Illustration credit: The News Literacy Project.

A Tennessee-based media company working with six popular conservative influencers was revealed to be a front for a Russian influence campaign. This marks the third consecutive U.S. presidential election that Russia has attempted to manipulate through online disinformation. The operation, allegedly funded by two employees of Russian state media company RT, aimed to exacerbate divisions among Americans and push pro-Russian narratives and content, including messages that favor former President Donald Trump, who the Kremlin believes is more aligned to its interests on issues like the Russia-Ukraine war, according to the U.S. Justice Department.

Discuss: Do influencers have any responsibilities? How big a threat are disinformation campaigns to democratic elections?
Resources:
- “Misinformation Dashboard: Election 2024” (NLP).
  - Note: This dashboard is a new resource from NLP that launched last month. It’s a growing collection of over 600 examples of viral election misinformation accompanied by tools that help you analyze common trends within a larger context.
- “Misinformation” (Checkology® virtual classroom).
- Infographic: “In brief: Misinformation” / “En Breve: Información Falsa” (NLP’s Resource Library).
Related:
- “Why the Kremlin Loves Social Media” (Catherine Kim, Politico).
- “China-linked ‘Spamouflage’ network mimics Americans online to sway US political debate” (David Klepper, The Associated Press).
- “Iran Emerges as a Top Disinformation Threat in U.S. Presidential Race” (Steven Lee Myers, Tiffany Hsu and Farnaz Fassihi, The New York Times).

Political misinformation surged among progressives on social media this summer, fueled, in part, by conspiracy theories about the July 13 assassination attempt against former President Donald Trump. A Morning Consult poll conducted in July found that over a third of President Joe Biden’s supporters believed the assassination attempt might have been staged. An absurd and vulgar satirical falsehood about Republican vice presidential candidate J.D. Vance also gained traction, and was alluded to by Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign on social media and at a rally. Misinformation researchers interviewed by The New York Times say that falsehoods and misleading information from progressives are likely to increase as Election Day nears.

Discuss: How concerned are you about political misinformation? What makes conspiracy theories so compelling for some people? Why do you think conspiracy theories tend to proliferate after shocking events? Can viral political falsehoods affect you even if you don’t fall for them? How?
Resources:
- Poster: “Conspiratorial Thinking” (NLP’s Resource Library).
- “Conspiratorial Thinking” (Checkology virtual classroom).
Related:
- Opinion: “The alarming rise of BlueAnon” (Sohrab Ahmari, The New Statesman).
- [Warning: The following article includes a video with explicit language.] “How BlueAnon conspiracy theories are gaining momentum since the assassination attempt on Trump” (Juliette Gache and Quang Pham, France 24).

TikTok and Instagram are pushing violent and misogynistic content to teenage boys, according to experts and former social media employees. Cai, a British teen, told BBC News that, despite his efforts to flag such content as something he’s not interested in, suggestion algorithms continued to push it into his feeds. It “stains your brain,” he said.

Discuss: What are algorithms? How do algorithms shape the information you see on social media? Are algorithms more useful or more harmful? Why? Is it possible for algorithms to serve your interests and the interests of social media companies? Why or why not?
Idea: Use slides 12 and 13 in the Daily Do Now resource for students to further reflect on this BBC article.
Resource:
- “Introduction to Algorithms” (NLP’s Checkology virtual classroom).
  - Note: This new lesson launched last month and features two humorous characters: Algo, who personifies social media algorithms, and Gen, who represents generative AI. It is hosted by Mia Sato, a tech reporter at The Verge. See this lesson guide for more information.
Related:
- “Instagram teens are regularly recommended sexual and explicit videos, new report finds” (Chase DiBenedetto, Mashable).
- “Want to fight misinformation? Teach people how algorithms work” (Myojung Chung, Nieman Lab).

A News Literacy project banner ad encourages readers to join NewsLitNation for exclusive access to a NICKLpass account and complimentary annual subscriptions to The New York Times, The Washington Post and Time.

You can find this week's rumor examples to use with students in these slides.

Viral falsehoods depict fake Venezuelan gang invasions in U.S. cities

Two social media posts fuel the viral falsehood that Venezuelan gangs are operating in the United States and taking over apartment buildings in two cities. One reads, “The Hell’s Angels. The outlaws, and Mongols on their way to Aurora Colorado, to confront the Venezuelan Gangs for taking over the apartment complex to protect the citizens of Aurora Colorado” and features a video of dozens of people on motorcycles. Another reads, “BREAKING: A group of 32 armed Venezualans took over an apartment building in Chicago tonight. Here’s the audio of the 911 dispatch call. First they did this in Aurora, CO and now Chicago? Which city will be next? This invasion happened on Kamala’s watch,” and features audio of a 911 call that authorities say was a bogus report. The News Literacy Project has added a label that says “FALSEHOODS.”

NO: The video in the post to the left does not show Hells Angels members preparing to drive to Colorado to fight a Venezuelan gang that supposedly took over an apartment in Aurora, a Denver suburb, in August.

YES: This video was filmed in 2022 and shows the 12th annual Tucker’s Toy Run and Motorcycle Raffle charity event in Northampton, Pennsylvania.

NO: An apartment building in Chicago, Illinois, was not taken over by 32 armed Venezuelans in early September.

YES: Chicago police responded to a 911 call that 32 armed Venezuelans were seen in an apartment building, but they did not issue a report and there is no evidence the claim was genuine.

NewsLit takeaway:

Removing a video or photograph from its original context and posting it online with a sensational claim connecting it to current events or viral rumors is one of the most common forms of misinformation. This sort of content is quick to make, and since it features authentic media, it can also be difficult to detect. Checking to see if a claim originated with a credible source is the first step in evaluating its validity. In the case of the motorcycle video, a reverse image search can also be used to uncover additional context — that the video is nearly two years old and was filmed during a charity event.

Content that elicits a strong emotional response can easily bypass critical thinking skills, especially when paired with a hot-button political issue, such as immigration. Being a responsible social media user means resisting the urge to immediately engage with content. By slowing down, we give ourselves time to question sensational content and allow credible sources time to investigate and verify online claims.

Partisan accounts spread fabricated claims portraying Harris as a communist

Three social media posts portray Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris as a communist, including one AI-generated image of Harris in a red outfit with a crossed hammer and sickle emblem on her hat, another edited image showing Harris and her vice presidential running mate, Tim Walz, in front of a “Revolutionary Communists of America” banner and a third that shows a fake Communist Party membership card for Harris. The News Literacy Project has added a label that says “FALSEHOODS.”

NO: This is not a genuine photo of Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris wearing a red uniform and a hat with a hammer-and-sickle communist emblem.

YES: It is an AI-generated image.

NO: This is not a genuine photograph of Harris and her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, standing in front of a “Revolutionary Communists of America” poster. (Spanish wording translates to: “When you think you’ve seen everything, Kakamala surprises you with this beautiful poster.”)

YES: It is a doctored image created by manipulating a photograph of Harris and Walz in front of a “Kamala and the coach” sign.

NO: This is not a genuine image showing a 1984 Communist Party membership card for Harris.

YES: It is a fabricated image created with an online prank generator.

NewsLit takeaway:

One of the objectives of creating misinformation is to distort the perception of political candidates and turn them into caricatures of themselves.

This type of misleading content tends to come from hyperpartisan accounts, which makes it very important to check sources. Here are a few other ways to investigate these posts:

Harris’ communist uniform: This AI-generated image, shared by X founder Elon Musk, isn’t accompanied by a link back to a reputable source. Questioning where and when this photograph is taken leads to important context about its origins.
Image of Harris and Walz with fake Communist sign: Altering the text on signs is a common form of photo manipulation. Plugging this piece of media into a reverse image search engine goes to results that show the original image used to create the fabricated photo.
Harris’ fake Communist Party card: This third example would be the most newsworthy if it were genuine, but lateral reading reveals that it was not covered by any credible news outlets. Additional investigation unveiled fact-check articles that debunked it and traced it to a prank Communist Party card-generator that’s been around since at least 2014.

Social media influencers have made an industry out of promoting anti-aging skincare products — and now girls as young as 8 are getting rashes, blisters and chemical burns from using products they see on their social media feeds.

Brazil has banned X nationwide following legal disputes about misinformation spreading on the platform and after X failed to name a local legal representative. The country had an estimated 22 million X users, some of who are now flocking to alternative platforms like Bluesky and Threads.

A hidden camera video from the Heritage Foundation (and boosted by X owner Elon Musk) alleges that noncitizens in Georgia are registering to vote — but investigators found no evidence to support the claims.

Teachers are feeling the pressure from parents and administrators to avoid political topics in the classroom. A recent survey found that 42% of Wisconsin social studies teachers faced restrictions when teaching about politics, elections or current events.

After studying how press freedoms have been weakened in countries like India, Brazil and Hungary — where the prime minister “effectively dismantled the news media in his country” — New York Times publisher A.G. Sulzberger wrote an essay for The Washington Post highlighting the common tactics in their playbooks.

A network of Venezuelan media outlets is using AI-generated news anchors as the face of its reporting — not to deceive its audience but rather to protect journalists from the government, which has imprisoned at least 10 journalists since mid-June.

ESPN announced it is using AI to generate recaps of games and provide coverage of “under-served sports.” The network says each AI-generated story will be reviewed by a human editor.

Did you know that generative AI tools can now make convincing synthetic videos? Take this AI quiz to see if you can tell what’s real. 🤖

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Your weekly issue of The Sift is created by Susan Minichiello (@susanmini), Dan Evon (@danieljevon), Peter Adams (@PeterD_Adams), Hannah Covington (@HannahCov) and Pamela Brunskill (@PamelaBrunskill). It is edited by Mary Kane (@marykkane) and Lourdes Venard (@lourdesvenard).

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