Young people need to recognise that information online doesn’t appear there by magic: it is posted by people. People can make mistakes, post inaccurate information for a joke or (unfortunately) to deliberately mislead others.
Some examples of the types of unreliable information young people might see include:
- Clickbait (titles and images which are designed to attract new visitors to online content, but are not necessarily an accurate representation of what that content is about)
- Online scams (for example, advertising which mimics a computer pop-up or which claim users have won a high-value item in a competition)
- Fake News (including articles which may contain out-of-date information, information which is partially true, or information which is biased and misrepresents true events)
- Social Media Content (including image-based content which has been heavily edited or carefully selected)
An example of an original selfie, alongside an edited version of the same selfie. Young people need to think critically about the images they see on social media to determine if they are an accurate representation of real life.