In reality, we know that civics education requires the cultivation of skills, such as problem-solving, media literacy and negotiation.

Across the United States, leaders worry about the decline of civics education, yet the students who need it most live in a different learning universe. Those of us raised on Schoolhouse Rock learned civics through Saturday morning television cartoons. Generation Alpha and the slightly older Generation Z learn through influencers, social media and curated digital content.

In an era of disinformation, polarization and online outrage, democracy depends not on rote recall but on citizens who think critically, collaborate effectively and disagree civilly.

Our schools need a modern approach to civics education. This century needs Americans who can filter disinformation, engage online without dehumanizing one another and use digital tools to solve problems effectively. The skills have changed, but the goal is the same: cultivating the character required for self-governance. 

In a world where we can say anything instantly, we must teach young people how to respond with moderation, empathy and discretion. The stakes are high, given the potential for enormous reach due to social media and online communication.

The Founders never thought civics education was a spectator sport. Thomas Jefferson argued that self-government required “habit and long training.” Benjamin Franklin warned that the republic would endure only “if you can keep it.” As demonstrated repeatedly in the new Ken Burns film “The American Revolution,” early Americans learned civics by doing it — participating in town halls, volunteering for militias and engaging with public debates — not by memorizing a few facts before a test.

The concept of self-government began with learning how to govern oneself, which required the cultivation of restraint, discipline and reason. In fact, public schools taught students how to debate, deliberate and serve. Civics cultivated character and prepared citizens to shoulder the responsibilities of democracy. The 19th-century McGuffey Readers that taught schoolchildren about individual character might seem antiquated now, but they served a clear purpose by shaping future citizens.

Over time, that vision of civics narrowed. Students learned about democracy and American history, but less about what effective citizenship requires. Teaching the democratic virtues of courage, humility, patience, integrity, respect and resilience got shelved, too.

Taking a multiple-choice test won’t cut it for 21st-century civics. Knowledge about the American system, its history and the founding principles is necessary but not sufficient. Students should learn how to deliberate, disagree respectfully and collaborate. They need to understand how to analyze social media feeds for bias, just as previous generations were taught to scrutinize newsprint. Most importantly, when faced with challenging problems, they must have the skills and confidence to devise reasonable solutions with broad support.

There is reason for hope. Young Americans volunteer and advocate in record numbers, demonstrating that they care deeply about pressing issues. According to Donorbox’s 2025 volunteer statistics, more than half of Generation Z has volunteered at least once in the past year. The challenge is to connect their inclination for engagement with a shared grounding in the vocabulary of rights, responsibilities, and constitutional limits.

A reimagined civics strategy, such as the bipartisan roadmap, can prepare this energized generation for a lifetime of purposeful and effective participation. Created by a diverse group of educators, scholars and practitioners, the framework provides comprehensive resources to guide the creation of new curriculum for civics and history.

In addition to modernizing our approach to civics education, there is also a political problem to confront. Those on the right criticize “action” civics, which uses advocacy or protest to learn about democracy. Those on the left decry “traditionalist” civics, which emphasizes American exceptionalism and blind patriotism. Neither approach is constructive; both are stand-ins for tired ideological battles.

Rethinking civics for the digital age must transcend polarization. It should be neither conservative nor liberal but should cultivate the knowledge, skills and dispositions democracy demands today. Anyone can post a video or write a witty comment, but are students widely taught to do so in a responsible manner that cultivates cooperation, understanding and better solutions?

The answer right now is no.

Linking knowledge to experiential learning is key. Students can do this in a variety of creative ways: creating a podcast about their town’s history, undertaking a local service project benefiting the community, or participating in moderated debates on national issues that respect divergent opinions. An approach that combines traditional learning with nonpartisan, sensible opportunities for community engagement should find support from both political parties.

Civics wasn’t meant to be recited; it was meant to be lived. In an age when participation is easy and responsibility is hard, a civics reboot can prepare the next generation to meet the challenges ahead.

Just over a third of Americans now say people are generally trustworthy, a downward shift over the past two decades, . ​Meanwhile, show t​​​rust in institutions like schools, courts and the presidency is at record lows​.

​​This trend also has seeped into an institution we know well:​​ the media​.​​​ SmartNews, an app that curates news from credible outlets, that 65% of Gen Z readers regularly question the accuracy of news. That’s more than any other age group, pointing to growing generational skepticism. 

And a from the News Literacy Project found that four out of five teens believe journalists fail to produce more credible information than other content creators. Nearly seven in 10 believe journalists add bias intentionally. And 45% believe they do more harm than good to democracy. 

The results are both a warning and a call to action: Today’s young people are deeply skeptical, but they also crave trustworthy information.

 Some skepticism is good; it helps readers think critically and avoid misinformation. But unchecked, it can curdle into cynicism, isolating them from shared facts and civic dialogue. When everything is met with disbelief, they risk tuning out completely.

That is where news literacy comes in. It is not just a set of skills; it is the foundation for restoring trust in democracy. To build a future filled with healthy skepticism, instead of divisive cynicism ​toward the media​, young people need to learn how to navigate today’s complicated online spaces.

Why is this so urgent? Because misinformation thrives where trust breaks down. Conspiracy theories and viral falsehoods are just a swipe away. According to a by the News Literacy Project, many teens believe the conspiracy theories they encounter online. What is worse is that SmartNews that only 13% of Gen Z report fact-checking what they read, making them the least likely generation to verify information.

It’s understandable how we got here. Clickbait and daily headlines can make the world seem like a scary place. Rumors and false information fill social feeds. ​Deciphering ​​what’s real and ​fake​ is a challenge​, and has only made it harder. This doesn’t mean Gen Z doesn’t care about the truth. Quite the opposite — they care deeply but feel overwhelmed by the sheer volume of noise. As digital natives, they’re expected to instinctively know what’s credible and what’s not. But instincts aren’t enough, and news literacy can bring them closer to a shared understanding.

The good news? Schools across the country are stepping up. In New York’s, librarian Cynthia Sandler led students in creating Instagram reels exploring how to separate news from paid ads, spot AI-generated images and fact-check claims using credible sources.

In , a teacher at Woodland Hills Academy offers a current events elective helping students build media literacy skills, while are integrating news literacy across subjects, from examining hip-hop music history to evaluating scientific sources.

The impact is measurable: Teens who having media literacy instruction are more likely to trust news media compared to their peers who didn’t receive these lessons.

These examples point to a broader movement. At least 18 states have now requiring or promoting media literacy education, with Connecticut, Illinois and New Jersey specifically news literacy instruction.

So how can more schools join this effort? It starts with five simple practices educators can apply today to help students identify trustworthy sources: 

• Do a quick search: Conducting a simple search for information about a news source will show what others have said about its reporting practices and dedication to accuracy.

• Look for standards: While​​ not perfect, reputable news organizations aspire to ethical standards, including fairness, accuracy and independence.

• Check for transparency: Quality news sources should be transparent about their reporting practices, ownership and funding.

• Examine how errors are handled: Credible news sources care about being accurate, so they correct their mistakes and acknowledge them to their audience.

• Assess news coverage: Read multiple articles to evaluate whether they’re applying standards that lend credibility to their coverage.

In today’s information ecosystem, skepticism is essential — but cynicism is corrosive. When young people are equipped with both the tools and the trusted platforms to think critically, they’re better able to shape their world with facts, not fear.

And that’s a future worth building.

As much as possible, the high school junior has tried to set up guardrails on rapid-fire social feeds to limit scrolling and the allure of algorithms’ suggestions. “For my own self control,” she said.

Murphy may be an outlier among her peers, but increasingly many teens share her feelings of information overload and awareness that they can’t trust everything they read on social media. “There’s just so much bad information out there that it sometimes gets jumbled up,” Murphy said. “It’s just hard to discern what someone’s intent is with something.” 

As members of Gen Z — born between 1997 and 2012 — high school students like Murphy have grown up with smartphones and social media. It’s a digital world where algorithms fuel endless scrolling and conspiracy theories feel like the norm. 

That’s particularly true for Murphy and her classmates at Owasso High School in Owasso, Oklahoma, a quickly growing Tulsa suburb of 39,000. It’s a place that last year felt the intense glare of going viral and the chaotic flow of news, half-truths and hate following the death of Nex Benedict, a 16-year-old nonbinary student who an altercation in the girls’ bathroom. 

As a news literacy expert working to support educators, I recently spoke with 12 students at Owasso High School about their news habits and what it’s like trying to find credible information in an online environment that constantly tests their ability to know what’s true. 

Here are four takeaways from our conversations. 

1. Teens are drawn to conspiracy theories — and may not realize they can lead down dangerous rabbit holes. 

A by the News Literacy Project found that eight in 10 teens on social media say they encounter conspiracy theories, with 81% of those teens reporting that they are inclined to believe at least one of them. 

Senior Elijah Wagner, 18, told me he often turns to X, formerly Twitter, and sorts through “the chaos” of content on the platform to keep up with news. 

“There’s a lot of conspiracy theories on Twitter,” Wagner said, adding that much of what he sees are “people who just want to make a big deal about something.” 

For some young people, part of the appeal is that these narratives feel fun and entertaining. Students I spoke with rattled off viral rumors they’ve seen about celebrities like Beyoncé. But as with the teens in our national survey, Owasso students also reported seeing conspiracies that went well beyond celebrity gossip, including disproven theories about the Earth being flat and falsehoods about 9/11. 

Though exposure is not the same as belief, seeing a claim repeated enough — even one that starts out as a joke — true. “It gets to the point where it’s kind of hard not to believe some of them,” said Kelsey Perry, 18. 

2. Peers can play an important role in fact-checking. 

In online spaces, fact-checking is something many students try to do. Among teens who engage with news-related social media posts, nearly eight in 10 report that they at least sometimes fact-check these posts before sharing or liking them, according to our study. Those who were taught media literacy were more likely to say they frequently check for accuracy before posting online.  

Research that we’re more likely to believe fact-checks from people we know. 

On the winter day of my visit, the Los Angeles wildfires dominated online conversation. News of the fires had reached students not only through the mighty curation of their TikTok For You pages, but also through family and friends. 

One student admitted she hadn’t kept up with the fires because they seem far removed from their Oklahoma community. She added that the fires, after all, were happening all the way “in Atlanta.” 

“No, it’s in L.A.,” an 18-year-old classmate said, chiming in with a fact-check.  

The group laughed, agreed and moved on to describe videos they’d seen of the destruction. 

During their lunch hour in the library, these students continued cycling through a process of shared meaning-making: offering information, testing it against each other’s knowledge and interpreting it as a group. 

When conspiracy theories came up, a junior mentioned seeing posts suggesting the Holocaust didn’t happen. “But I’m pretty sure that did happen,” she added, “because isn’t there, like, museums for it and stuff?” 

Another student confirmed, saying they just learned about the Holocaust in history class the day before. A win for real-time social correction — and a reminder of why it’s crucial for students to feel comfortable stepping into the role of fact-checker to share what they know with peers.  

3. Yes, teens turn to influencers, but standards-based news still has a place. 

We know many young people see social media influencers as trusted sources, even over news outlets. In fact, our survey found that eight in 10 teens say that the information news organizations produce is either more biased than or about the same as other content creators online. 

In each of my conversations, it didn’t take long for talk of social media to broach the story that last year turned this high school into a national fixture of grief and viral debate. Reflecting on the death of their classmate and the crush of national attention that ensued, students recalled when misinformation became personal and painful.  

Hateful comments flooded school-associated social media accounts. Classmates stayed home following against the school. Students described seeing a protest unfold outside classroom windows while following along on a TikTok livestream. One student remembered eating lunch with a teacher rather than in the cafeteria because a friend felt scared.  

They also watched celebrities and influencers weigh in. 

For Murphy, who tries to limit her social media use, last year marked a turning point. She said an influencer she followed for political commentary on current events posted about the Owasso student’s death before many details had been confirmed. “Seeing them make that post really made me see that maybe they weren’t as credible as I originally thought they were,” Murphy said. 

Now Murphy said she tries to check multiple credible sources for news to compare what she’s hearing. 

Other students told me something similar: Though many people their age follow influencers, news outlets still have a place, especially for stories that meet a certain threshold of importance. (“If it’s big enough,” or “if I’m scared about the news,” one 16-year-old said.) 

4.    They want news literacy instruction. 

The News Literacy Project’s study shows that an overwhelming majority of teens (94%) want media literacy instruction, but most aren’t getting it. 

I heard much the same at Owasso High School. Some students said they’d heard terms like “lateral reading” in school: when you leave a source of information and do a quick search to learn more about the claim or source. But they also told me they wished media literacy could be woven throughout their classes, from statistics to science. 

Library media specialist Melinda Gallagher has been teaching news literacy lessons for about eight years in her role at Owasso. “I feel like this is one way we can help our students — and help ourselves, to be frank — with figuring out what is real and what is not,” Gallagher said. “It’s very important for our future as a country.” 

Students didn’t ask for this online quagmire or create it. But it’s a world they’re expected to navigate. “Social media is so prevalent … it’s not going away,” said Makenzy Holm, 17. “We might as well learn to use it to our best ability.”

Can you tell fact from fiction online? In a digital world, few questions are more important or more challenging.

Can you tell fact from fiction online? In a digital world, few questions are more important or more challenging.

This story was published in collaboration with Headway, a new initiative at The New York Times. Chalkbeat and Headway have been to educators and high school students since February. We have heard from more than 1,000 students and 200 teachers across the nation.

This presidential election year, young Americans are navigating a chaotic world of information, often with limited tools to distinguish what’s credible, what’s questionable, and what’s downright false.

A found that while many young people can detect images generated by artificial intelligence with ease, they struggle to differentiate news from commentary and advertisements and regularly encounter conspiracy theories on social media. Eight in 10 respondents said they believed at least one of those conspiracy theories.

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and their peers told us that they regularly encountered false information online about the election between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald J. Trump. Some teachers have dedicated and fact-checking.

And many students have told us they have gained confidence in spotting falsehoods. We asked more than 1,000 students about what tips them off that a piece of information might be false or misleading, what’s their approach to verifying information, and what advice they have for other teenagers. Here’s what we heard.

Responses have been edited and condensed for length and clarity.

How teens know if information is sketchy, made up or manipulated

“If the content I’m seeing is triggering an extreme emotional reaction in me — rage, fear or joy, to name a few — without offering nuanced context, it leads me to think that it might be designed to mislead. When I encounter something that seems absolutely certain about morally and politically complex topics, such as the Israel-Hamas war, without acknowledging alternative views or uncertainties, I suspect it’s oversimplifying reality to push an agenda.”

— Sena Chang, 18

College freshman at Princeton University in New Jersey

“Articles that sound sketchy, made up, or manipulated are a red flag. Some media sources get rid of the bits and pieces of context that make a situation understandable. And media outlets sometimes contradict each other. Check and cross-check media. When a true piece of media spreads like wildfire, some media outlets will try and get attention from the situation and end up spreading lies about the situation. That’s why I find most articles about popular controversies annoyingly eye-rolling.”

— Antonette Davis, 14

Freshman at Central High School in Philadelphia

A single source doesn’t cut it for verifying what’s true

“I verify my information by getting it from multiple sources, not just people online who are crediting the original article I read. I also look at the information presented in the article from the perspective of a person who doesn’t know anything about the topic and see if the article and the ideas presented still make sense.”

— Yoni Zacks, 17

Senior at the Blake School in Minneapolis.

“More often than not I look it up on Google and read about it on a more reliable website. For example, if an article makes a claim about a piece of legislation, I try to find the full text of the cited legislation to better understand what it’s saying.”

— Olivia Garrison, 17

Graduated in 2023 from Davidson Academy in Reno, Nevada

“There’s a tool called Google Reverse Image Search that I use to check the origins of viral images or memes to see where they first appeared and if they’ve been repurposed out of context. During events like the presidential debate, I also looked at multiple websites offering real-time fact-checking like The New York Times to help contextualize what I was hearing and identify when what the candidates were saying was misinformation.”

— Sena Chang

“To verify information, I try to listen directly to candidates or their campaigns. I find this is the easiest way to understand the candidate’s policy plans, opinions on certain issues, and overall decorum. While commentary can be helpful, it often includes opinions that make me perceive certain things a certain way. Therefore, I find it important to directly hear from a political candidate first. Afterward, I listen to and watch video media with commentary. It helps me compare my understanding to someone else’s and clarify things I might not have fully understood.”

— Meghan Pierce, 18

Freshman at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign in Champaign, Illinois

How young people navigate a world of misinformation

“As a teenager, I get a lot of my information from social media. I know many other teenagers get their information this way, too, so my word of advice is to be aware of the algorithm and how you’re fed information usually from one side. You’re not getting the complete story, so do your research instead of trusting one source!”

— Emma Luu, 17

Junior at Pine Creek High School in Colorado Springs, Colorado

“Check anything you think is misleading with a quick search and cross-check if it’s legitimate or not.”

— Arnav Goyal, 14

Freshman at Olentangy Liberty High School in Powell, Ohio

“Become aware of media bias, and do your best to consider different perspectives and stay open-minded while being aware of media bias.”

— Lucas Robbins, 17

Senior at Mandela International Magnet School in Santa Fe, New Mexico

“My (unpopular) take is that fact-checking is easier than it seems. … ​Social media serves as an integral egalitarian news source where anyone can create and share primary source information no matter where they live in the world. However, using social media as a sole source of information can be dangerous. Sometimes even recognizing satirical news sources is hard — I have been a victim of thinking The Onion was a real news source. You don’t have to research every single headline you ever see. The internet can be an overload of information at times, and choosing to disconnect is a skill young people need. However, if you see something that raises eyebrows, understanding the context is just a Google search away.”

— Kush Kaur, 17

Freshman at Collin College in McKinney, Texas

Teenagers are inundated daily with a mix of credible information and fake news. Out of necessity, they’re sharpening their instincts to identify misinformation and building skills to verify or debunk it. Their advice is clear: Stay mindful of algorithmic influence, avoid relying on a single source, and remember that it’s OK to step back when it all feels overwhelming.

Need more insights? Explore the resources below.

Caroline Bauman is the deputy managing editor for engagement at Chalkbeat. Reach her at cbauman@chalkbeat.org.

Erica Meltzer is the national editor at Chalkbeat, where she covers education policy and politics. Reach her at emeltzer@chalkbeat.org

This was originally published by . Chalkbeat is a nonprofit news site covering educational change in public schools. Sign up for their newsletters at .

Correction appended Sept. 30

Educators and advocates from across the country — many of whom say they have already seen the effects of anti-immigrant political rhetoric on their students — convened Wednesday night to strategize on how to counter it in their schools. 

Adam Strom, director of Re-Imagining Migration, told the webinar’s 93 attendees to take an active role in combating prejudice by facing the issue head-on. He encouraged participants to address bullying against immigrant students specifically in school policy — and to teach about stereotypes without unintentionally reinforcing them. 

“Xenophobia harms all kids,” he said, “particularly immigrant youth.” 

The meeting came two weeks after former President Donald Trump claimed during a presidential debate that immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, . Debunked by multiple official sources, Trump and his Republican running mate, JD Vance, have persisted in repeating the lie, which resulted in bomb threats that shuttered six Springfield schools and two local colleges. 

Less than 30 miles away in Dayton, Joni Watson, a retired public school teacher, works for an adult literacy nonprofit that helps participants earn their GED. Watson’s group also helps Dayton-area newcomers learn to read and write English through free one-on-one tutoring. 

“This topic is near and dear to my heart as I am really in the thick of it on a daily basis,” she told The 74. “I am just sick about what Vance and Trump are doing and saying.”

In a pre-webinar survey of 74 respondents, 31% said they knew of immigrant children who had reported being bullied or teased at school. Twenty-three percent said they heard students make anti-immigrant comments on campus this school year while another 23% heard staff make such statements since the beginning of the year. Eleven percent said they heard or witnessed staffers make anti-immigrant comments to families and caregivers.  

Strom advised educators to reach out to young immigrants and their families to check in on how they are feeling during this turbulent time and to tell all students that bullying of newcomers is unacceptable. He said, too, that educators should respond immediately when such incidents occur. 

During the session, Strom unveiled Re-Imagining Migration’s new . The AI-powered tool, which fed off thousands of pages of information from the organization’s website, including reports and lesson plans, was developed to help users identify misinformation. 

It encourages them to check the validity of such claims by consulting credible fact-checking sites such as — and to learn and spread correct information to their school communities. Since putting Springfield , Trump has moved to inciting false fears over immigrant communities in and .

Psychotherapist Liz Carrasco said she wanted to attend the webinar because she’s seen the impact of hate speech on her students. 

“Many worry that their families could be torn apart, or that they will face discrimination in their pursuit of education and work,” she said. “For these students, political rhetoric is not just words — it has very real and immediate consequences for their safety and their future.”

A U.S. citizen who was born in Mexico, Carrasco works with UNLV PRACTICE Nevada Rural Communities Mental Health Outreach Program, which supports young people ages 12-25, and teaches at the university’s School of Social Work. Carrasco, who was not speaking on behalf of UNLV, said she works with immigrants who have gone through horrific ordeals, including some who were victims of human trafficking.

Strom asked participants to be honest about whether and how they teach about migration and instructed them to develop better, more robust lessons that capture immigrant students’ experiences. 

He said this can be done at all grade levels.  

“Think about how you might use childrens’ books to normalize the stories of newcomers,” he said during the hour-long event.  

Anindita Das, community engagement strategist at an Iowa college, said she was compelled to attend the event because reducing prejudice helps build a more inclusive and harmonious society.

“Being an immigrant myself, I know immigrants bring diverse cultures, perspectives and experiences, enriching the social fabric of the host country,” she said. “Immigrants contribute significantly to the economy through their labor, entrepreneurship and innovation. Addressing prejudice ensures they can fully participate and contribute.”

Correction: An earlier version of this story had an outdated description of Liz Carrasco’s job with the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.

Organizations like are working to equip Gen Z with the skills to differentiate between what’s real and what’s fake online. 

YVote was founded in New York City in 2017 out of concern for low youth voter turnout in the 2016 presidential election, when only of 18- to 29-year-olds nationwide cast a ballot. The organization is youth-centered and youth-led, with a core team of six that includes two high schoolers. The main facilitator is Mukilan Muthukumar, a senior at Hunter College High School. Since its launch, the organization has worked with over 1,500 students across 70 schools.

Kenisha Mahajan, a YVote alumna and lead facilitator, said that since the organization’s founding, it has expanded to civically engage young constituents beyond just voting. “A lot of people on our team banded together and realized that young people need a lot more empowerment and uplifting and also this connection to resources if we’re actually going to get them out to the polls,” Mahajan said.

Mahajan said the organization planned several sessions and activities for its annual, week-long Democracy Camp this month centered on media literacy, including icebreakers on current events, guided discussions on accessing information and trivia-style games on media bias.

“For young people that might be concerned about [artificial intelligence], we want to give them a platform to air out their concerns when it comes to what AI and media is looking like and talk about their experiences with it,” she said.

Christine Li and Eloise Gordon are peer leaders for the organization. Li is a junior at Millennium Brooklyn High School and Gordon is a senior at West End Academy Secondary School in Manhattan. The high schoolers worked together this spring on a Civil Action Project with the organization about media literacy and misinformation, which they showcased to about 60 students from several schools, adult leaders from voting and human rights organizations and community members during a virtual presentation. They also worked with journalist , co-founder of RANTT Media, to record an of The Roundtable: A Next Generation Politics Podcast titled Media Literacy in a Maelstrom.

“I think the consensus within our group was that media literacy was very important for this time of AI, false information and the 2024 election,” Li said. “A lot of the young leaders in our fellowship were really alarmed by how much false information they were interacting with.”

“When you think about the advent of mis- and disinformation since [then-candidate Donald Trump’s] 2016 tweets … the obvious example I point to is the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, which were rooted in mis- and disinformation,” Gordon said.

An analysis from The Brennan Center that Trump’s election-denial scheme that began in 2020, when he was president, is still impacting the voting process four years later. The organization cited the increase in threats and harassment of and restrictive across the country that disproportionately impact voters of color as byproducts of those efforts to overturn the results of the election.

As part of their project, Li, Gordon and other high schoolers brainstormed ways to combat falling for fake information online. One strategy the group implemented is the SIFT method, created by digital literacy expert and research scientist . SIFT stands for: Stop, Investigate the source, Find better coverage and Trace claims. Li said it’s a simple yet effective way to find biases and connect to original sources.

Another strategy Gordon said they promoted for detecting AI images is focusing on people’s hands, as artificial intelligence doesn’t have fingers and other small details like teeth figured out. In March, a fake of Trump being arrested circulated online. One of the biggest signs that it was bogus was the hands of Trump and the police officers in the image.

The group also discussed social media echo chambers and how easy it is to fall into a cycle of interacting only with information you agree with.

“We are really limited in our ideas, especially by algorithms and the conversations we have … I think if we really want to use social media for good, it’s really important that we seek out these new opinions and ideas,” Li said.

For Gordon, Facebook is the most concerning social media app when it comes to fake news being shared widely, “specifically on the news feed section of the Facebook app. We discussed as a group that the idea of a customized news feed inherently sounds flawed because news obviously isn’t customizable.”

Facebook has been several times over its content, and in 2021, founder Mark Zuckerberg said posts with misinformation about COVID had been removed from the site.

As for Li, she said she believes Trump’s Truth Social app is the most dangerous for mis- and disinformation.

“I think it’s a breeding ground for bias and misinformation because it’s not really fully developed. I think other apps do a much better job with regulating content and having fact checkers,” she said.

Aside from the Civic Action Projects, YVote has initiatives like training youth on canvassing for voter registration and participatory budgeting. The organization won first place and $20,000 in a 2021 citywide budgeting campaign to create community gardens at underfunded public schools.

During the organization’s summer camp, NYC teens are guided to envision what democracy looks like to them and are taught skills necessary to create it. They learn about the history of American democracy, craft proposals on specific issues they’d like to tackle and are encouraged to continue what they’ve learned by creating a research project during the school year. Though students don’t receive extra credit at school, those who participate will qualify for Certificates of Activist Excellence and/or Civic Leadership.

The organization also offers a year-long program called the Change Makers Institute, where facilitators aged 17 to 24 lead high school students in monthly virtual sessions to learn about voting and advocacy. They train students on reading news headlines and how to point out ones that may be fake, disreputable or skewed to the left or right politically.

In addition, the organization encourages young people to explore topics they’re passionate about, such as mass incarceration and school segregation and teaches them how voting can impact these issues.

In April, YVote launched Youth Civic Hub, a one-stop shop for New York City youth to learn where and how to vote, find out who is running for office in their area and get information on civic organizations that they may want to get involved in. The hub is run by a team of seven, six of them college students. 

The offers a civics glossary to break down common terms and an interactive map that allows voters to enter their neighborhood and see which politicians represent their area and what authority they have. The hub also features a directory of nearby organizations, an election portal that can help young people register to vote and an opportunities board for those who want to get involved beyond voting.

The News Literacy Project, a nonpartisan national education nonprofit that provides programs and resources to help people of all ages become smart, active news consumers, released a for teachers today to aid in their ongoing battle against disinformation: The framework was unveiled as part of the , an event presented by the Project and the E.W. Scripps Company.  

The effort has five main goals. It was designed to help students distinguish news from other types of information and recognize the importance of the First Amendment in American democracy, including the value of a free press in shaping a well-informed citizenry. 

It also seeks to help children understand the standards of quality journalism, use them to identify credible sources and sharpen their verification skills. Lastly, it aims to help students take responsibility for the information they put out into the world, a campaign called “Care Before You Share” that is being promoted through a public service announcement.

“News and media literacy is a critical skill impacting students’ academic, personal, professional and civic lives,” said Shaelynn Farnsworth, the Project’s director of educator network expansion. “Yet, unfortunately, our students are inheriting the most complicated information landscape in history and are often duped by what they consume online.”

Farnsworth said misinformation threatens not only our democracy, but our very lives, especially as it concerns baseless conspiracy theories around the pandemic. 

“Instead of developing healthy skepticism, students read with a cynical eye instead of a critical one, often not believing any information they consume online,” she said. “To combat this, educators hone skills, so students know what to believe, who to trust and what to share.”

The organization is encouraged by its growing reach: More than 165,000 students used its platform between July 2020 and January 2022, totaling more active young users in 18 months than in the prior four years.

The Project’s recommendations were unveiled during the same week that the American Federation of Teachers announced its new partnership with the anti-misinformation group, , an organization run by Steve Brill, who founded The American Lawyer, Court TV and the Yale Journalism Initiative and Gordon Crovitz, former publisher of The Wall Street Journal. 

According to the AFT, its 1.7 million members — and, by extension, the tens of millions of children they teach plus their families — can now receive a free, online tool that will provide real-time news ratings via a licensed copy of NewsGuard’s browser extension. Educators are invited to sign up  

The need for such tools and programs has only grown in recent years as former President Donald Trump and his supporters ­— — flooded social media with on myriad topics. Trump himself was by the company days after the Jan. 6 insurrection “due to the risk of further incitement of violence”.

At least one social media company, already to reign in false claims, was called out this week by a conservative parents’ group that said it was unfairly targeted for removal from the platform. 

Moms for Liberty, started by two former school board members out of Florida, has grown tremendously since its inception in January 2021. Co-founders Tina Descovich and Tiffany Justice attribute much of its success to social media, which allowed members to connect and spread their message without in-person meetings.

But the platform treated them unfairly for ideological reasons, the women told Meta founder Mark Zuckerberg in an open letter dated Jan. 24. In the past few weeks, they said, 22 of their national chapter groups were sent “notifications of community violation” and were disabled for posting what they called “basic information about local government operations such as school board meeting times, or questions about student textbooks.”

“Our groups have been shut down repeatedly,” they wrote, adding their administrative accounts had been suspended and their national page restricted from posting for “security reasons”, though they are unclear as to why. “This severely impacts our ability to pursue our core mission of helping American parents organize to participate in the education of their children. One Moms for Liberty group page, from Fort Bend, Texas, was disabled the same day it launched! It did not even have the opportunity to violate whatever vague standards are being enforced against our moms.”

Facebook, now run by a company called Meta, objected to the characterization late Tuesday night. 

“Meta doesn’t target any group because of their politics,” a company spokeswoman said. “After reviewing the content associated with this organization, we determined that some was removed correctly for violating our misinformation policies.”

Other content was removed by mistake and has since been restored, the spokeswoman said. Descovich said Wednesday afternoon that her administrative privileges had been reinstated and that many chapter’s Facebook pages are back up and running. 

The dispute between Moms for Liberty and Facebook over misinformation charges and freedom of speech claims might be one students could dissect using the Project’s new tool. 

Pamela Brunskill, the Project’s senior manager of education and content, said the new framework will help teachers manage what feels like unlimited information.

“The idea of educating the next generation to be news-literate is daunting, particularly because we’re faced with the most dynamic and complex information environment in history,” she said. “For many educators, it’s hard to know what to teach and where to begin.”

The Project’s new tool will make that Herculean task much easier, Brunskill said, and pay long-term dividends.

“Imagine if our entire society could distinguish news from other types of information, could recognize the role a free press plays to an informed citizenry, could understand the standards of quality journalism, could detect misinformation and faulty evidence, and could express a sense of responsibility for the information they share!,” she said in an email. “What kind of democracy would that look like?”

Disclosure: Campbell Brown is the head of news partnerships at Facebook. Brown co-founded The 74 and sits on its board of directors. She plays no role in the reporting or editing of The 74’s content.