TRAINING MATERIAL

FOR YOUTH WORKERS, TUTORS AND TEACHERS

EXERCISES, GAMES, TIPS & TRICKS ON HOW TO FOSTER

DIGITAL LITERACY AND DIGITAL WELLBEING AMONG
YOUNG PEOPLE IN THE ERA OF FAKE NEWS

This project has been funded with support from the European Commission.
This publication [communication] reflects only the views of the author. Therefore The Commission cannot be held
responsible for any eventual use of the information contained therein.
Project No. 2017-3-AT02-KA205-001979
 www.fake-off.eu

Created by
Dr. Tetiana Katsbert (YEPP EUROPE)
Jochen Schell (YEPP EUROPE)
Barbara Buchegger (ÖIAT/Saferinternet.at)
Matthias Jax (ÖIAT/Saferinternet.at)
Thomas Doppelreiter (LOGO jugendmanagement)

Contributions by
Stefano Modestini (GoEurope)
Javier Milán López (GoEurope)
Alice M. Trevelin (Jonathan Cooperativa Sociale)
Dario Cappellaro (Jonathan Cooperativa Sociale)
Marisa Oliveira (Future Balloons)
Vítor Andrade (Future Balloons)
Clara Rodrigues (Future Balloons)
Michael Kvas (bit schulungscenter)
Laura Reutler (bit schulungscenter)
Sarah Kieweg (bit schulungscenter)

Graphic design by
Marcel Fernández Pellicer (GoEurope)

This project has been funded with support from the European Commission.
This publication [communication] reflects only the views of the author. Therefore The Commission cannot be held
responsible for any eventual use of the information contained therein.
Project No. 2017-3-AT02-KA205-001979
 Intellectual Output 4

Training Material

for youth workers, tutors and teachers

Exercises, games, tips & tricks on how to foster digital literacy and digital
wellbeing among young people in the era of Fake News

Created by

Dr. Tetiana Katsbert (YEPP EUROPE)

Jochen Schell (YEPP EUROPE)
Barbara Buchegger (ÖIAT/Saferinternet.at)
Matthias Jax (ÖIAT/Saferinternet.at)
Thomas Doppelreiter (LOGO Jugendmanagement)

in the framework of the project “Fake OFF! Fostering Adolescents’ Knowledge

and Empowerment in Outsmarting Fake Facts”
www.fake-off.eu

December 2019
This project has been funded with support from the European Commission.
This publication [communication] reflects only the views of the author. Therefore the Commission cannot be held
responsible for any eventual use of the information contained therein.
Project No. 2017-3-AT02-KA205-001979
 Table of contents

Foreword 6  
1. Young people as social media users 7  
2. Fake news: Recent trends and technologies 8  
2.1. Online news consumption 8  
2.2. Influencers, YouTubers, Instagrammers 9  
2.3. Fake news & Fake reach 11  
2.4. Algorithms & Advertising 11  
2.5. Chain letters 11  
2.6. From propaganda to hoaxes and fake news 12  
2.7. Filter Bubbles 15  
2.8. Deepfake 16  
2.9. Tips for youth workers 18  
3. Key competences for young people in the era of fake news 19  
3.1. Digital literacy 19  
3.2. Digital wellbeing 20  
3.3. Three-step model to foster digital literacy and digital wellbeing 21  
STEP 1. Strengthen digital literacy 22  
STEP 2. Create new habits 36  
STEP 3. Apply new habits in daily life 41  
4. Training young people in key competences 43  
4.1. Exercises and games 43  
STEP 1. Strengthen digital literacy 43  
4.1.1.  Warm  Up  Quiz   43  
4.1.2.  Find  and  report  misleading  accounts   45  
4.1.3.  Hoax  factory:  trace  the  evil   46  
4.1.4.  Why  &  what  in  horror  movies   47  
4.1.5.  Social  Network  training  for  younger  ones   48  
4.1.6.  Search  routines  for  younger  ones   49  
4.1.7.  Pass  the  ball,  pass  the  fake!   51  
4.1.8.  Prototyping  reliable  &  fake  posts   52  
4.1.9.  Let’s  become  fake  authors!   53  
4.1.10.  Where  is  my  truth?   54  
4.1.11.  Influence  me!   56  
 4.1.12.  Tell  me  what  you  did  last  weekend   57  
4.1.13.  K-­‐W-­‐L  Charts   58  
4.1.14.  The  motives  behind  Fake  News   60  
4.1.15.  Detecting  Fake  News   61  
4.1.16.  Emotions  and  Fake  News   63  
4.1.17.  The  way  we  (re)act  online   64  
4.1.18.  The  way  we  (re)act  online  –  Emoji  Cards   66  
4.1.19.  8Ps  Puzzle   68  
4.1.20.  What  is  what?  Matching  mis-­‐  and  disinformation   70  
4.1.21.  Spotlighting  fake  news:  element  by  element   72  
4.1.22.  Run  for  the  correct  answer!   74  
4.1.23.  Selfie   75  
4.1.24.  Accordion  communication   77  
4.1.25.  Touchscreen   78  
4.1.26.  Did  you  know  this?   79  
4.1.27.  Before  and  after  the  fact   81  
4.1.28.  News  thunder   82  
4.1.29.  Are  you  online?   84  
4.1.30.  Fake  news  about  something  around  me   85  
4.1.31.  Youtuber  for  a  day   86  
4.1.32.  What’s  wrong?   88  
4.1.33.  Chinese  Whispers   89  
4.1.34.  From  a  detail   90  
4.1.35.  Chinese  Drawings   91  
4.1.36.  The  unreliable  news  reporter   93  
4.1.37.  FAKE  NEWS  Bingo   94  
4.1.38.  Real  or  Fake?   95  
4.1.39.  What  can  we  learn  from  satire?   96  
4.1.40.  Know  your  bias!   97  
4.1.41.  Professions   97  
4.1.42.  What  a  picture!  (1)   99  
4.1.43.  What  a  picture!  (2)   100  
4.1.44.  Who  wants  to  be  a  millionaire?!   102  
STEP 2. Create new habits 103  
4.1.45.  One  day  completely  different:  my  documentation   103  
4.1.46.  One  day  completely  different  -­‐  2:  the  challenge   104  
4.1.47.  Freeze   106  
 4.1.48.  ‘Fake  news’  handball   107  
4.1.49.  Collect  ideas  against  fake  news   108  
4.1.50.  Guessing  bad  habits   109  
4.1.51.  Breaking  habits   110  
4.1.52.  Online  behavior  change   112  
4.1.53.  The  habits  of  your  role  model   114  
4.1.54.  Replacing  bad  habits   115  
4.3.55.  Ethical  online  behavior   117  
4.1.56.  Critical  Thinking   119  
4.1.57.  Just  Listen   121  
4.1.58.  The  Online  Behavior  Stop  Dance   123  
4.1.59.  My  SOCIAL  MEDIA  USER  from  the  past…and  future!   125  
4.1.60.  Are  you  here?   129  
4.1.61.  Healthy  communication   131  
4.1.62.  Medical  leaflet   132  
4.1.63.  Media  Diary   134  
4.1.64.  Start  a  rumour!   135  
4.1.65.  You  better  think!   136  
4.1.66.  Spot  it!   138  
STEP 3. Apply new habits in daily life 141  
4.1.67.  Fight  fake  news  online  -­‐  My  answer  depository   141  
4.1.68.  My  news  detector  update,  or  “check  your  source”  day   142  
4.1.69.  My  filter  bubble  update   143  
4.1.70.  Report  fake  news   144  
4.1.71.    Yes,  I  can!   145  
4.2. Combining exercises in different time slots 148  
4.2.1. A two-hour session 148  
4.2.2. A half-day session 150  
4.2.3. A day activity 151  
4.2.4. A fake news week 152  
4.3. Working with the FAKE OFF! app 152  
4.3.1. We defend ourselves against fake news (1 hour) 152  
4.3.2. Our school gets immune against fake news (1 month) 153  
4.3.3. Group challenge (1 hour) 155  
4.3.4. Fake news rally (1 hour) 156  
4.4.Testing of the Training Material 157  
 4.4.1. General information 157  
4.4.2. Feedback to the exercises 157  
4.4.3. Overall Evaluation 165  
4.4.4. Profile of the respondents 165  
Annex 1. Further reading 169  
Annex 2. Template for the exercises 170  
Annex 3. Info about the Fake OFF project 171  
Foreword
This Training Material has been created as Intellectual Output 4 in the context of
the project Fake OFF! Fostering Awareness and Media Literacy among Young
people. The goal of the Training Material is to enable youth workers and teachers
to support young people in their individual learning process in the context of
media literacy. This Training Material is developed in line with the project’s
General Didactic Concept (Intellectual Output 1) and the app for young people
(Intellectual Output 3). It seeks to foster educators’ competencies in the area of
intentional digital misinformation and to improve teachers’ and tutors’
competencies regarding digital learning systems and platforms. To ensure that
the Training Material meets the needs of the target group, results from the
learning, teaching and training activity with youth workers were considered in
the process of creating the Training Material, as well as evaluation and the
feedback provided by the target group.
The Training Material is a new resource in the area of media education in youth
work as not much of the kind has been established yet. This material is available
in five languages: German, Portuguese, Spanish, Italian, and English. Many
youth workers and teachers from Europe contributed to the development of the
Training Material and their feedback was incorporated in the final version of this
document.
To increase the impact, we strongly encourage our readers to use the Training
Material in broad educational settings, as well as share information about the
available project outputs: A General Didactic Concept to foster media literacy in
youth work, an app for young people which contains game-based classroom
activities and a tutorial on fake news; the website fake-off.eu for youth workers
with access to didactic material and up-to-date information, and finally the
Training Material itself. We expect that the material will be used by youth
workers and teachers in five project countries - Austria, Germany, Italy, Portugal
and Spain, and beyond.
The Training Material is available for download worldwide. It can be translated
into other languages and might be adapted for other educational contexts
outside of youth work.
Further use of this material is permitted with reference to the source.
The Fake OFF Project has been co-funded by the Erasmus+ Programme of the
European Union, Key Action 2 - Strategic Partnerships.
1. Young people as social media users
The Global Digital Statshot report as of July 2019 shows that currently, there are
3.5 billion social media users worldwide, which equates to about 46% of the
total world’s population, and this number is only growing.1 Users of Internet and
social media come from the following generations - in the progression numbers:

● Baby Boomers (born between 1944 and 1964),

● Generation X (1965 - 1979),
● Generation Y, or Millennials (1980 and 1994),
● Generation Z (born between 1995 and 2010), and
● Generation Alpha, or the iGeneration (born between 2011 and 2025).

Whereas Millenials are reported to be most active users compared to previous

generations (90,4% compared to 77,5% of Generation X and 48,2% of Baby
Boomers), the signals are clear that Generation Z and Generation Alpha are
going to overrun them in their frequency of social media usage.

Source: Social media marketing statistics, oberlo.com

Generation Z and Generation Alpha cannot remember life before Internet and
social media. Generation Alpha - the children of the Millenials - is growing up
with voice assistants, e.g. Siri, Alexa, Google Assistant, and artificial intelligence.
They are called “digital integrators”2 since they integrate technology in their
daily routine and interact with artificial intelligence in the most natural way.

The young generation requires new approach to education and new skills. As the
scientists point out, the right way to teach the young Alphas is by developing
their critical thinking and problem-solving skills3. Although their knowledge of
technology outstips that of the previous generations, it will be important for
Generation Alpha and their children to be able to critically assess information

1
https://wearesocial.com/blog/2019/07/global-social-media-users-pass-3-5-billion
2
https://interestingengineering.com/generation-alpha-the-children-of-the-millennial
3
ibid.
and make decisions based on their own personal and individual critical thinking.
Quick thinking, creativity and teamwork will let them analyze possible alternative
solutions according to different viewpoints, and co-live with advanced Artificial
Intelligence. In this regard, deep learning will still be required to outsmart
technology and its recent trends, which is the subject of the next chapter.

2. Fake news: Recent trends and technologies

When the so-called "Web 2.04" was mentioned in 2004, nobody could have
imagined that this new technology, which replaced ”read-only” Web 1.0
websites, allowed people to create, share, collaborate & communicate to the
extent like never before. Between 2004 and 2019, the number of Internet users
increased from 745 million to 4.39 billion5 and continues to grow on a monthly
basis. Nowadays it is hard to imagine our life without Internet. We browse
naturally on our smartphones through social networks, share pictures of our food
and search for information whenever we need it. The Internet has become
omnipresent for the majority of the world’s population.

2.1. Online news consumption

Terms like "Smombies6" and "Generation Head Down" appear and try to describe
the phenomena that are associated with constant accessibility of users and the
continuous flow of information. Because we always have the smartphone with us
as a faithful companion, on the way to school or at work, it's enough to put your
hand in your pocket and we can pick our preferred information from an endless
pool of information.

Information on current topics is, according to a 2017 Austrian study "Rumors on

the Net" by Saferinternet.at, today primarily consumed in the social networks.
These are no longer simply classic news sites that use Facebook, for example, as
a platform to get users to their website, but contributions that are shared and
commented by other users.

The generation between 11-17 in particular has no longer been using Facebook
but has been relying primarily on the moving images and videos like Instagram
or TikTok to get information. It is clear that in order to attract users’ attention
you need to apply images and infographics. Research undertaken by social
media management platform Buffer found that tweets with images gained 18%
more clicks, 89% more likes and 150% more retweets. Similarly, online content

4
CIO: Fast Forward 2010 – The Fate of IT, 2004 – The Year of Web Services.
5
https://www.internetworldstats.com/emarketing.htm
6
http://www.bbc.co.uk/learningenglish/thai/features/the-english-we-speak/ep-180402
analytics tool Buzzsumo discovered that people were more than twice as likely to
share an article with an image than one without7.

Nowadays, YouTube is the most relevant tool8 for young people to search for
news. Young people, for example, only use Google for a quick research, but if
they want to go deeper, YouTube serves as the medium of their choice.

Besides YouTube, Instagram, at least in Austria, is the only medium to record a

steady growth. In the so-called "Stories", private individuals as well as news
portals upload videos of maximum 30 seconds which will disappear after 24
hours. These small snippets of information are one classic symptom for our fast-
moving digital world.

The relevance of content has also changed over time. Young people in the digital
world today are mainly concerned with topics such as health, sports, nutrition
and diets, or self-image. All important topics for youth are outlined in the Fake
Off! General Didactic Concept on page 16.

2.2. Influencers, YouTubers, Instagrammers

Who puts the news on the Internet? In the past, it was mainly the classic media
owned by large publishing houses. Today it is mainly individuals. Some operate
as individual companies, but many are part of larger media companies that
support professional marketing. It is important to understand that young people
today do not choose their own thematic channel but follow their digital role
models. Then it can happen that for example political information is suddenly
consumed between singing videos. A very popular example of this was the
German YouTuber Rezo in 2019, who published an almost 1-hour video9 shortly
before the election, criticizing the largest parties in Germany with almost 200
topics including sources.

The technical term for all these people is "influencer10". That is, someone who
influences other people in one way or another. Basically, it's nothing new. It
used to be an actor, a famous musician or sometimes a neighbor next door.
Today it's people who have their own digital channels to sell products.

“YouTuber" or "Instagrammer", the career aspirations of young people do not

come from somewhere, but from the very fact that they are addressed in this
way today.

7
https://info.lse.ac.uk/staff/divisions/communications-division/digital-communications-
team/assets/documents/guides/A-Guide-to-Writing-Engaging-Content.pdf
8
http://www.jugendinternetmonitor.at/
9
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Die_Zerst%C3%B6rung_der_CDU
10
https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/influencer
Internet celebrities like Felix Kjellberg (PewDiePie11 70 Mio YouTube subscribers)
or Kimberly Noel Kardashian West (Kim Kardashian12 144 Mio Instagram
subscribers) make it almost daily with their videos and pictures to the
smartphones of children and teenagers. And it's understandable that one then
has the desire to become so famous.

Some local influencers from other countries:

German-speaking area
Bianca Claßen with BibisBeautyPalace (5.6+ Mio. YouTube subscribers):
https://www.instagram.com/bibisbeautypalace/?hl=de

Spain
El Rubius (35+ Mio. subscribers on YouTube):
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCXazgXDIYyWH-yXLAkcrFxw
Dulceida (2.6+ Mio. followers on Instagram):
https://www.instagram.com/dulceida/
Paula Gonu (1.9+ Mio. followers on Instagram):
https://www.instagram.com/paulagonu/
El Cejas (1.7+ Mio. followers on Instagram):
https://www.instagram.com/elcejass__/

Italy
CutiePieMarzia (7+ Mio. subscribers on Youtube; 6,1 mio followers on
Instagram):
https://www.instagram.com/itsmarziapie/?hl=it
Anima (3+ Mio. subscribers on Youtube):
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCHZl_sLl4kGZSkrPBrWb_aQ
Chiara Ferragni (17,1+ Mio. followers on Instagram):
https://www.instagram.com/chiaraferragni/?hl=it

The influence these so-called "influencers" have on young people can be seen in
the products they buy (BibisBeautyPalace has its own shampoo brand13) and, of
course, the information they recite and how. This allegedly strange digital world
with its own language is deeply embedded today in the everyday life of children
and young people and it is important to know about it in order to know how to
deal with it.

11
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC-lHJZR3Gqxm24_Vd_AJ5Yw
12
https://www.instagram.com/kimkardashian/?hl=de
13
https://www.bilou.de/
2.3. Fake news & Fake reach
It is obvious that in the digital world there is a deliberate scattering of false
information. Nothing spreads more easily than highly emotional content which
even seems to be up-to-date on a daily basis. So, it happens that suddenly
political topics are taken up like it happened around the EU article 13/1714 where
it was hard to distinguish between truth and fake news.

Yet above all, how do influencers measure themselves and how are they
measured? Here it's all about the reach, i.e. likes and interactions. The more
subscribers someone has, the more likes a picture gets, the more value their
own digital opinion has. The fact that these likes are often not real but paid plays
only a secondary role. It occurs already that an Instagrammer with several
million subscribers gets only a few hundred likes and comments on his/her
pictures. So much for the value of the opinion and the value of digital likes.

2.4. Algorithms & Advertising

Many fake news suddenly get a huge reach. Often one speaks of a viral effect.
Social networks in particular rely on algorithms that display the right information
to users at the right time. Sometimes this works better and sometimes worse.
But since fake news often intentionally scatter highly emotional content, which,
depending on the author, is supported with advertising money, algorithms
support the distribution of this.

Especially big social networks live from the fact that companies spend money on
advertising. In this way, targeted advertised articles can quickly take up
coverage, which is then billed to the advertiser accordingly. Even if there are
constant attempts to improve this algorithm so that only "really" relevant
information is displayed, fake news always creates a high reach out rate and
finally ends up on our smartphone, as well as on those of children and
teenagers.

2.5. Chain letters

A prominent example for the spreading of fake news in the environment of
young people are so-called chain letters15. These are short messages, which are
usually sent with the request to send them to a certain minimum number of
other people. The content of those messages can differ and mostly includes
warnings (e.g. “be careful of person XY, he will send you a virus, forward this
message to x people”), threats (e.g. “your mother dies if the message is not

14
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=article+13
15
https://www.saferinternet.at/projekte/kettenbrief-handy/
forwarded”), and rewards (e.g. “you can win an iPhone X if you forward this
message to x people”).
To get an overview about current chain letters, check this website to get some
examples:
https://www.geekysplash.com/25-hilarious-whatsapp-hoax-texts-and-forwarded-messages/

Even if it often seems ridiculous for critical thinkers, it is essential that such
content is taken seriously when it is shown to you. For children, these chain
letters are a digital reality with which they can be confronted daily. This makes it
even more important to encourage them to stop sending the letters and discuss
them with adult contact persons and peers. Saferinternet.at theirfor even
initiated a project called “Kettenbrief-Handy” which translates to “Chainletter-
Smartphone” where young people can send their chain-letters. The aim of the
project is to stop spreading chain-letters by telling the youngest that this service
counts as the same as sending the letter to 20 people (which is normally the
number of persons you have to send the chain-letter preventing that bad things
will happen to you).

2.6. From propaganda to hoaxes and fake news

Propaganda is information that is not objective and tries to influence people to
think in a certain way. On this behalf it is not surprising, that propaganda is not
a new phenomenon; whenever powerful people wanted to exert influence on a
special topic throughout history, some form of propaganda was used. There are
indications that even in Ancient Rome Anthony, Nero and Claudius were victims
of fake news campaigns by their political opponents. These were either
circulated by historians, who wrote dishonest reports about behaviours of
politicians, that are still partly believed today (like stories about Nero and the
great fire of Rome), or even printed on coins to ensure the circulation.

Even though the term started as a neutral term mostly used in religious context
during the Reformation, in the last 100 years propaganda became more and
more associated with manipulation and biased communication. An early example
of propaganda that still is around in some rightwing and antisemitic groups is
‘The Protocols of the Elders of Zion’. This antisemitic text was first published in
1903 in Russia and is a mixture of plagiarism, satire and hate towards the
Jewish people. Parts of this work date back to a satirical text about french
politics in the 19th century by Maurice Joly and an antisemitic novel by Hermann
Goedsche. It pictured Jews as arrogant, corrupt, and willing to do anything to
gain power and influence. Even though it was already proven a forgery in the
early 1920s, Hitler and the Nazis used it to defame Jewish people. It was used in
speeches, referred to in ‘Mein Kampf’ and even taught in schools.

Another ‘branch’ in the history of fake news are hoaxes. American showman P.T.
Barnum became very famous in the early 19th century through buying strange
exhibits all over the world to present them in his travelling circus – such as the
so called “fiji mermaid”. He knew that his exhibits were forged but sensation-
hungry people paid the entrance to see them - and they acted as if they were
real because they didn’t want to admit being fooled. This circus even came to
Europe to visit royals like Queen Victoria and the Tzar of Russia. The poet Edgar
Allen Poe wrote a hoax (mostly as a revenge) for the newspaper ‘The Sun’ when
he posed as balloonist Monck Mason who allegedly crossed the Atlantic Ocean in
a hot air balloon. The newspaper published the article but two days later it was
retracted.

A part of hoaxes, that also is a big part of fake news, is parody. Even though
they are not planning to spread fake news, they provide news that are close
enough to real stories. Given these circumstances, they are believed and shared
every now and then. A very prominent example is the “stone louse” invented (or
better: discovered) by German humorist Loriot. He described the newly found
species in a fictional nature documentary. It went on to be presented in the
‘Pschyrembel Clinical Dictionary’ as a scientific joke and it is still printed in the
current edition. People who are not in this specific scientific community may not
know about the joke-side of this article and take it for real. So the joke is often
enough not on the subject itself but on the people who believe it.

In the time when newspapers were the biggest media authority and the TV
began to develop, hoaxes became more and more used. It was easier to get
messages to the people, because there were fewer different sources, and people
believed what was presented by the outlets, because they had less ways to
check if the message was true. Politics were a very important ‘market’ for
propaganda and hoaxes - newspapers and leaflets were produced to discredit
other parties, other nationalities, other religions. And some of the things didn’t
change over the years: drastic pictures, harsh words with unambiguous
messages and insults are still important parts of political campaigns.
In these four pictures you can see Nikolai Antipov, Josef Stalin, Sergei Kirov and
Nikolai Shvernik. Stalin got the picture retouched after every one of them got
removed from office or executed.

These pictures demonstrate an example of propaganda. With every person that

became unpopular, the Stalin government had to redo the portrait until it only
showed Stalin in the end.

The most recent big push fake news got was through U.S. President Donald
Trump’s media rants. Between December 10th 2016 and July 24th 2017 he used
the term “FAKE NEWS” 73 times on Twitter16 which he uses as his main public
communication channel, often not to tackle “real” fake news but to discredit
reputable sources that just didn’t report his opinions and political agenda. He
also defamed a whole part of the media as “fake news”, not only their stories but
the outlets as a whole. Unfortunately, not only Trump is using social media to
spread his opinions: more and more (young) people express their feelings and
opinions through social media channels. And there it seems that their feelings
are more important than facts.

16
https://ew.com/tv/2017/06/27/donald-trump-fake-news-twitter/
2.7. Filter Bubbles
According to Regina Marchi17, today's youth is less interested in news as they get
their information more and more via social media. Even though people see
themselves in a neutral position, only a minor percentage is subscribed to media
sources from both sides of the spectrum (left/right). This is the reason why
people tend to think that everybody thinks like them: because no one in their
social media feed, or “bubble”, is of contrary opinion).

This phenomenon is called echo chamber and in times of social media and web
2.0 this gets amplified by algorithms. Through this, so-called filter bubbles are
established in which people find themselves surrounded by mostly like-minded
people. The term was first coined by Eli Pariser in his 2011 book of the same
name. His definition of “echo chambers” is: ‘the intellectual isolation that can
occur when websites use algorithms to selectively assume the information a user
would want to see’ 18. So, the Internet recognizes what you want to see and
shows it to you; this is based on algorithms that consider your Internet
behaviour and all other data that is available on you. And that can be a lot! Your
social media profile, your location data (from apps that are allowed to use your
location information), your search terms in search engines and online shops -
they all can be used to create a profile and put you in categories as left/right-
leaning, old/young, male/female, interested in topics such as environment,
movies, sports, …

This does not only affect the commercials you may get, e.g. via Google Ads;
more and more websites like Amazon or YouTube have dynamic content where
they show you the content you may like based on your search history, interests
and other algorithms. They do not show you other things. This means that
different people with different opinions (or separated by algorithms) get different
articles. Unfortunately, that has the potential to divide society. An example
brought up by data scientist Gilad Lotan is the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. On
Twitter, the bubbles do not really overlap. People who are pro-Israel get their
news from pro-Israeli websites and people who are pro-Palestine get their news
from pro-Palestine websites (see the graphic).

17
Marchi, Regina (2012): With Facebook, Blogs, and Fake News, Teens Reject Journalistic
“Objectivity” in Journal of Communication Inquiry, p246-262.
18
Pariser, Eli (2011): The Filter Bubble. How the new personalized Web is changing what we read
and how we think. Penguin Press.
Gilad Lotan 2014: network graphics of the Twitter landscape (Israel - Palestine)

A webpage that shows news from both sides and classifies them is allsides.com.
To every bit of news, they show where it was published and where on a
spectrum of left/right the medium is placed. On big news, you can read the
articles next to each other and see what certain sources underline, leave out,
and with which pictures they show the content. It is US-centric, but also shows
news from around the world, if they are of worldwide interest.

2.8. Deepfake
Deepfake is a technique for human image synthesis using the Artificial
Intelligence (AI) technology to combine or superimpose existing images to
create fake news and hoaxes.

An example of deepfake technology – actress Amy Adams in the original (left) is

modified to have the face of actor Nicholas Cage (right)19.

19
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=61555724
The term “deepfake” originated in December 2017 in an online Reddit
community from a user known as deepfakes who used a deep learning machine
technology to edit the faces of celebrities onto people in pornographic video
clips. Since then, according to Wikipedia, the technology has been used in
politics, pornography, fraud and software development20, creating concerns
around abuse of technology and undermining credibility and authenticity.

The technology behind creating deepfakes is that there are two competing AI
systems: the generator and the discriminator.21 The generator creates a fake
video clip and then asks the discriminator to determine whether the clip is real
or fake. Each time the discriminator accurately identifies a video clip as fake, it
gives the generator a clue about what not to do when creating the next clip. A
so-called generative adversarial network (GAN) is formed by the generator and
discriminator, and the system has been constantly improving: the generator gets
better at creating fake video clips and the discriminator gets better at identifying
them. The other way round, as the discriminator gets better at spotting a fake
video, the generator gets better at creating them.

Until recently, it has been very difficult to modify video content. However, since
deepfakes are created through Artificial Intelligence (AI), this does not require
much human skill to create a deepfake in contrast to the real video production.
This means that anyone can create a deepfake in order to promote their agenda.
The danger of high-quality fake videos is that, on the one hand, people might
believe in images of other people re-projected doing and saying things that they
have not in fact done or said. On the other hand, deepfakes undermine the trust
in the validity of any image-based content and create public confusion which can
be used for manipulation.

20
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deepfake
21
https://whatis.techtarget.com/definition/deepfake
2.9. Tips for youth workers

After this general information about fake and fact in news and social media, this
part addresses you as a youth worker. For you as a trainer of young people it is
important to stay up to date to the reality of young people. To this aim and to
know what young people are thinking, you must know what apps they use, what
trends they follow and what stars and influencers they know and trust. You do
not have to think alike, but you should be aware of these things in order to
understand them.

If a young person wants to talk to you about his or her life and habits or some
problem he or she faces on the Internet, not only should you show interest, but
also (at least to some extent) know what he or she is talking about. Otherwise
it’s hard to be authentic and young people realize that very quickly. Then it may
be hard to communicate with them, as they lose trust in you.

If you get to know a new app or social media platform, try it out! Play around
with it, do a bit of research about hazards and safety issues. See who is in
charge of the app, who developed it and where your data is going to. Which
permissions does the app have and what are they for?

If you find a news story or a picture that seems suspicious to you, try to find its
source. Try to find out where it came from and what spin it has. Young people
will ask you about things they find on the Internet. And they (sometimes) will
ask your advice whether they should trust the source or not.

Be aware that everyone is biased. Everyone has personal values that shape his
or her everyday life. Try to break out of your filter bubble and inform yourself on
different media channels. The more diverse sources you read and know, the
better you can judge by gut feeling if something can be true or not.

In short:
- Know the kids you are dealing with!
- Know their (online/digital) life reality!
- Don’t be afraid of new technologies - try them out!
- Be open-minded but question so-called “truths”!
- Be aware of your own bias!
- Think (and read) outside the box!
3. Key competences for young people in the era
of fake news
The phenomenon of fake news, how they arise, what forms and channels they
take and what competences and capacities young people need to spot and
counteract them, was already described in the “General Didactic Concept” of the
FAKE OFF! project.
In this chapter, we focus on two key competences for young people in the era of
fake news, namely digital literacy and digital wellbeing. We give examples of
how they can be fostered in the non-formal learning setting using a three-step
approach: 1) strengthen digital literacy, 2) create new habits, and 3) apply new
habits in daily life. In the next chapter, we will give explanations on how to use
the FAKE OFF! app created specifically for the purpose of raising young people’s
awareness and key competences in different learning settings.
Young people are continuously exposed to large streams of information, parts of
which are misinformation, propaganda and commercials. Critical assessment of
the information is a challenge because it takes time and discipline. Moreover, it
requires the knowledge of how to respond once you detected fake news and
propaganda. Becoming aware of what is healthy, safe and conscious digital
behaviour, how the digital data is used and how critical thinking can help to
counteract fake news is becoming digitally literate - a key life & career skill
and competence of the 21st century.

3.1. Digital literacy

According to Chambers et al., digital literacy is a core capability of living,

learning and working in a digital society and understanding technologies that
map and record personal data22. Aviram & Eshet-Alkalai provide a more
differentiated view of digital literacy as an integrated 5-skill model which
combines23:
1. Photo-visual literacy: the ability to read information from visuals.
2. Reproduction literacy: the ability to use digital technology to
create a new piece of work or combine existing pieces of work
together to make it your own.
3. Branching literacy: the ability to successfully navigate in the non-
linear medium of digital space.
4. Information literacy: the ability to search, locate, assess and
critically evaluate information.

22
Fiona C. Chambers, Anne Jones, Orla Murphy. Design Thinking for Digital Well-being: Theory
and Practice for Educators 2018. https://www.amazon.com/Design-Thinking-Digital-Well-being-
Educators/dp/1138578053
23
Aviram A., Eshet-Alkalai, E. Towards a Theory of Digital Literacy: Three Scenarios for the Next
Steps 2006. http://www.eurodl.org/index.php?p=archives&year=2006&halfyear=1&article=223
 5. Socio-emotional literacy: the social and emotional aspects of
being present online, whether it may be through socializing, and
collaborating, or simply consuming content.

With regard to fake news, photo-visual literacy, as well as information and socio-
emotional literacy are key competences which would enable young people to
distinguish between fake and true content, critically assess the content and be
able to react in an appropriate way.

Chambers et al. claim that digital literacy encompasses information literacy.

Sometimes, however, it is used interchangeably with information literacy, or
(digital) media literacy. In this document, we use the term “digital literacy”.

According to Antonio Cartelli, digital literacy has three purposes24:

1. Democracy, participation, and active citizenship

Illiterate individuals of any kind are less able to participate in democratic
processes. They don’t have the means to get and stay informed, they
are not able to express their opinions in the digital society.

2. Knowledge economy, competitiveness, and choice

In an ever faster and bigger growing economy, that gets more complex,
digital illiterate individuals are most of the time not able to achieve
higher levels in education and/or work. So, media literacy is also a skill
that can gain a financial advantage and vice versa.

3. Lifelong learning, cultural expression, and personal fulfillment

Finally, digital literacy is part of a very personal dimension of a
meaningful life. You are more inclined to being creative and expressing
yourself.

If young people become aware of the positive effects of digital literacy, they can
focus better on developing this competence.

3.2. Digital wellbeing

Another important core competence in the technological age is digital wellbeing.
Digital wellbeing includes socio-emotional literacy mentioned above, as well as
other aspects.

Chambers et al. define it as capacity to look after your personal health, safety,
relationships and work-life balance in digital setting, to use digital data to foster
community actions and wellbeing, to act safely and responsibly in digital
environments, to manage digital stress, workload and distraction, to act with

24
Cartelli, Antonio (2012): Current Trends and Future Practices for Digital Literacy and
Competence. IGI Global.
concern for human and natural environment when managing digital tools and to
balance digital with real world interactions appropriately.25

Digital wellbeing is the result of raised awareness about the functioning,

algorithms and use of digital media tools. It is also linked to emotional
intelligence and capacity to take care of yourself.
Fostering young people’s digital literacy and digital wellbeing means positively
affecting their daily routines.
Digital literacy and wellbeing do not only mean acquiring the competences in
using and evaluating online information. It also means practical application of it
in daily life.

3.3. Three-step model to foster digital literacy and

digital wellbeing
To strengthen digital literacy and foster digital wellbeing of young people in daily
life, FAKE OFF! project partners developed a three-step competence model:

Three steps Goals

1. Strengthen digital literacy. Strengthen critical thinking skills, learn

how to interpret information, how to
detect fake news, raise awareness of
digital ethics and privacy on the
Internet, and learn how to deal with
emotions on social media.

2. Create new habits. Raise awareness of the causes of habits,

challenges of change and steps to
create new healthy habits regarding
digital literacy and digital wellbeing.

Become aware of the old habits and

3. Apply new habits in daily
integrate new healthy and safe digital
life.
behaviour habits in your everyday life

25
Fiona C. Chambers, Anne Jones, Orla Murphy. Design Thinking for Digital Well-being: Theory
and Practice for Educators 2018. https://www.amazon.com/Design-Thinking-Digital-Well-being-
Educators/dp/1138578053
The three steps of the Fake OFF model are described below, in particular their
different layers, e.g. critical thinking, digital ethics, emotional intelligence for
Step 1; the psychology of habits for Step 2, and raising awareness on how to
apply new digital habits for Step 3.
The practical exercises and games which follow in the next chapter are split
according to these steps. They contain information for youth workers, trainers
and tutors on how to use the exercises according to the level of the group, what
material is needed and what is useful to consider while preparing for the
sessions with young people.

STEP 1. Strengthen digital literacy

Critical thinking

Critical thinking might be described as the ability to engage in reflective and

independent thinking26. Independent thinking means being an active rather than
a passive recipient of information, and questioning ideas and assumptions rather
than accepting them at face value.

Someone with critical thinking skills can:

● Understand the links between ideas.

● Determine the importance and relevance of arguments and ideas.
● Recognise, build and appraise arguments.
● Identify inconsistencies and errors in reasoning.
● Approach problems in a consistent and systematic way.
● Reflect on the justification of their own assumptions, beliefs and values.

Critical thinking goes hand in hand with digital literacy as it develops our ability
to reflect, evaluate and explain the perceived information. Ultimately, it is a
means to become resilient against manipulation and propaganda and to use
discourse based on the principles of democracy.
For the project Fake OFF, training young people on strengthening their digital
literacy and critical thinking means that they would learn:

● how to critically assess information: what is true? What is false?

What is a hoax? How to detect fake news?

26
https://www.skillsyouneed.com/learn/critical-thinking.html
 ● the difference between trustworthy and fake sources
(depending on the topic, context, goal) and how to do a fact check
● to understand the motivation behind Fake News: e.g.
commercial – using sensationalism; playing with emotions to get
views and clicks; political agenda; etc.
● to recognize and critically assess algorithms: e.g. influencing
information with paid adverts on Instagram, click factories,
influencers, etc.
● digital ethics: e.g. how to use and process information, when to
spread information, when to keep information for yourself (“think
before you like/share”)
● privacy: e.g. how to be safe on the Internet, how to protect your
accounts and private data and deal with cyber mobbing
● how to deal with emotions on social media: being aware of
emotional reactions of other people on social media and choosing
consciously how to share your own.

Detecting fake news

In order to be able to critically assess information and get a feeling for what is
true and what is false, critical thinking is the basic skill when you navigate the
web. Another one is the knowledge on how to detect fake news.

The International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA) has

made the following infographic with eight simple steps (based on
FactCheck.org’s 2016 article “How to Spot Fake News”27) to check the
verifiability of given news and urged the global community to share it.

27
How to Spot Fake News. By Eugene Kiely and Lori Robertson. 18.11.2016:
https://www.factcheck.org/2016/11/how-to-spot-fake-news/
 Source: https://www.ifla.org/publications/node/11174

Here some examples offered by Factcheck.org site28:

● Consider the source!

Some fake sites sound similar to well-known sites. Compare

http://abcnews.com.co to the actual ABC News abcnews.go.com/; or the
WTOE 5 News (whose “about” page says it’s “a fantasy news website”
https://wtoe5news.com/about-us/) as opposed to the actual WTOE 1470
AM
radio station Broadcasting Company. Whereas some sites provide a
“fantasy
news” or satire warning, others are not so upfront, like the Boston Tribune
https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/topic/The-Boston-Tribune (not to
be
confused with Boston Herald). This paper doesn’t provide any information
on
its mission, staff members or physical location — further signs that maybe
this

28
https://www.factcheck.org/2016/11/how-to-spot-fake-news/
 site isn’t a legitimate news organization.

● Read beyond the headline!

If a provocative headline drew your attention, read a little further before

you
decide to pass along the shocking information. Even in legitimate news
stories,
the headline doesn’t always tell the whole story. Headlines are often
created to
gain clicks and push sales. According to News Media Alliance, fake news
websites derive nearly 42 percent of their traffic from social media
platforms,
with readers clicking links they see posted on Twitter, Facebook,
Instagram and
other social sites29. But those links offer only headlines, making it difficult
for
even educated news consumers to know if what they’re seeing is real or
fake
news. The same site offers a quiz to test your ability to tell real news from
fake
from headlines alone.

● Check the authors!

Another sign of a fake story is often the author. The pledge of allegiance
story
on abcnews.com.co was supposedly written by “Jimmy Rustling.” Who is
he?
His author page claims he is a “doctor” who won “fourteen Peabody
awards
and a handful of Pulitzer Prizes.” If you check the winners of these prizes,
no
one by the name of “Rustling” has won a Pulitzer or Peabody award. The
photo
accompanying Rustling’s bio is also displayed on another bogus story on a
different site, but this time under the byline “Darius Rubics.” The Dubai
story
was written by “Sorcha Faal, and as reported to her Western Subscribers.
Sometimes, no author is indicated at all, as in the Pope Francis story.

● Assess the supporting sources!

Many times fake stories cite official, or official-like sources, but once you look
into it, the source doesn’t back up the claim. For instance, the Boston Tribune
site wrongly claimed that President Obama’s mother-in-law was going to get a
lifetime government pension for having babysat her granddaughters in the White

29
https://www.newsmediaalliance.org/fake-news-quiz/
House, citing “the Civil Service Retirement Act” and providing a link. But the link
to the Civil Service Retirement System website doesn’t support the claim at all.

Another viral claim 2015 was a graphic purporting to show crime statistics on
the percentage of whites killed by blacks and other murder statistics by race30.
Then-presidential candidate Donald Trump retweeted it, telling Fox News
commentator Bill O’Reilly that it came “from sources that are very credible.” But
almost every figure in the image was wrong — FBI crime data is publicly
available — and the supposed source given for the data, “Crime Statistics
Bureau – San Francisco,” doesn’t exist.

● Check the date!

Some false stories aren’t completely fake, but rather distortions of real events.
They can take a legitimate news story and twist what it says — or even claim
that something that happened long ago is related to current events.

At the time of Trump’s election in November 2016, the website Viral Liberty took
CNN’s 2015 story about Ford shifting truck production from Mexico to Ohio and
slapped a new headline deceptively linking the two occurences: “Since Donald
Trump Won The Presidency… Ford Shifts Truck Production From Mexico To
Ohio.”31

Here, check if the story is up to date, or old and out of context.

● Is it a Joke?

There is such thing as news satire. According to Wikipedia, there are two types
of news satire: One form uses satirical commentary and sketch comedy to
comment on real-world news events, e.g. Andy Borowitz satirical column32, while
the other presents wholly fictionalized news stories33. Normally, it’s clearly
labeled as such, but at times it is not. Such posts are designed to encourage
clicks, and generate money for the creator through ad revenue. Online hoaxer
Paul Horner told the Washington Post he makes a living off his posts. Asked why
his material gets so many views, Horner responded, “They just keep passing
stuff around. Nobody fact-checks anything anymore.”

● Review your own bias!

Everyone is biased. Confirmation bias leads people to seek information

that confirms their beliefs and discount information that doesn’t. Next
time, if you see a post concerning a politician you oppose, take a moment
to check it out. Also, the Harvard University developed a free test where

30
https://www.factcheck.org/2015/11/trump-retweets-bogus-crime-graphic/
31
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/ford-from-mexico-to-ohio/
32
https://www.newyorker.com/humor/borowitz-report/putin-appears-with-trump-in-flurry-of-swing-
state-rallies
33
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/News_satire
 you can check your unconscious bias towards politicians, religions, races,
sexual minorities, age groups, etc.34

● Ask experts!

Go to independent sources to get knowledge and check the claims. The

list of trusted US- and Europe-based sources is shown in the next section.

Checking facts

There are some independent sources which were created to fact-check the latest
viral claims that pop up in our news feeds. Here is a list of different Fact Checker
websites in European languages.

US-based: Europe-based

www.FactCheck.org www.mimikama.at (German)

www.washingtonpost.com (Fact Checker) www.hoaxmap.org (German)
www.Snopes.com https://correctiv.org/ (German)
www.PolitiFact.com www.hoaxsearch.com (English)
www.channel4.com/news/factcheck
(English)
www.bbc.com/news/topics/cp7r8vgl2rgt/r
eality-check (English)
www.tjekdet.dk (Danish)
www.konspiratori.sk/ (Slovak)
www.davidpuente it/blog/ (Italian)
www.butac.it (Italian)
www.bufale.net (Italian)
www.faktabaari.fi (Finnish)
www.theJournal.ie (Irish)
http://www.maldita.es/malditobulo/
(Spanish)
https://observador.pt/seccao/observador/
fact-check/ (Portuguese)
https://poligrafo.sapo.pt (Portuguese)

A special project for fact-checking is run by the Poynter Institute, a school of

journalism in the US, which initiated the International Fact Checking Network
(IFCN)35. They connected with other fact-checking sites all over the world and
established principles for any fact-checking medium which can apply for
membership, if they commit to the following standards:

❖ Nonpartisanship and Fairness: not drawn to one side, same standards for
every check

34
Unconscious bias test. Harvard University, project Implicit:
https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/takeatest.html
35
poynter.org/ifcn/
 ❖ Transparency of Sources: you have to clarify and provide your sources
❖ Transparency of Funding and Organization: where does the money come
from, who is part of the project?
❖ Transparency of methodology: how do you work?
❖ Open and honest corrections: if there is a mistake in your own work, it
has to be shown and made transparent.

Using fact checking sites to verify your news is easy, fast, and can safeguard
you from believing in information which does not exist.

To read more about how to spot fake news, see the General Didactic Concept of
the Fake OFF project.

Digital ethics

Internet is a massive stock exchange of information. In order to navigate safely,

there are some rules to respect and apply. The Institute for Digital Ethics (IDE)
in Stuttgart published 10 Golden Rules of Digital Ethics. It encourages all users
to take responsibility for freedom in the World Wide Web and respect everyone’s
dignity and freedom of action36:

1. Disclose as little as possible about yourself.

2. Be aware, and do not accept that you are being observed and that your
data is being collected.
3. Do not believe everything you see or read online. Keep yourself informed
utilizing alternative sources.
4. Do not condone bullying or hateful behavior.
5. Respect the dignity of others. Remember, even in the world wide web
rules are applicable.
6. Do not trust everyone with whom you only have contact online.
7. Protect yourself and others from extreme content.
8. Do not value your own worth by likes and posts.
9. Do not judge yourself and your body by numbers and statistics from your
online profiles.
10.Occasionally, turn off your digital devices and treat yourself to a timeout.

Whereas points 1-7 are about responsible online behaviour in relation to yourself
and others, points 8 and 9 are about self-worth. A 2019 article from Inc Tech
Magazine provides an interesting insight on how people measure their
worthiness. It questions if these things are healthy and encourages people to
feel good about who they are “no matter what”37. Even if you are eager to
attract people’s attention and gain influence, your self-worth should not be
determined by the number of likes and ratings on social media. In fact, it is not

36
https://www.digitale-ethik.de/showcase//2017/01/10Gebote_English_final.pdf
37
https://www.inc.com/amy-morin/how-do-you-measure-your-self-worth.html
a product of your intelligence, your talent, your looks, or how much you have
accomplished. Rather, your self-worth is immeasurable and unchanging
something which cannot be taken from you. It is that worth that allows you to
be happy, confident, connected and motivated. Point 10 can be seen as a tool
for digital wellbeing - allowing yourself some offline moments or doing a digital
detox. The Golden Rules can be printed as a wallboard in schools and youth
centres as a useful reminder for healthy digital behaviour.

Concerning young people, youth support portal Juuuport-Scouts38 elaborated the

tips on safe and ethical online behaviour and made them more concrete:

1. Respect the others.

You are not alone on the Internet! Don’t spread confidential information on the
Internet. A post visible for all may also cause lots of trouble.
Write nothing about your friends that you would not tell them in person.
Discuss private matters with your friends only in private chats, messages or
emails.
Help your friends if they experience something unfair.

2. Think before you post.

Whether it is your status or pictures, likes or shares, before you post something,
ask yourself these questions:
- Is it true?
- Is it kind, or can this hurt someone?
- Is it necessary? Do I post because I am angry? Do I reveal too much
about myself?
- Who would see it?
- Could something be misunderstood?

Internet never forgets. As soon as something appears on the Internet, you cease
to control it. Think twice before you upload something. A post, a picture or
comment may spread very widely as the Internet audience is large. It is possible
it shows up on a completely different side. What once seemed witty, may be
intimidating. Also, don’t write when you’re overly angry or happy, it may be
embarrassing later.

3. Ensure your safety on the Internet.

If you doubt someone is having a fake profile, ask your friends to check. If you
doubt a website is fake, check the impressum to see who’s really owning a page.

38
juuuport.de Online consulting of young people by young people
Secure your private data. Help to eliminate assaults, hate speech and
embarrassing pictures from the Internet. Help your friends if they are being
exposed to something uncomfortable, e.g. cybermobbing. For youth workers, it
is very important to know about the phenomenon of cybermobbing, in order to
be able to help victims.

Fighting Cybermobbing

Cybermobbing is a form of open or hidden violence with the aim of social

exclusion through continuous insults, verbal abuse, as well as spreading of lies
and gossip.

According to a 2017 research study in Germany, 1.4 million young people have
been affected by cybermobbing. 13% of the respondents between 10 and 21
years admitted to be the victims of cybermobbing, where a slightly higher
number of 13,4% confess that they have been cybermobbing themselves39. The
reasons for this were named to be a personal dislike of a person, rage because
of being mobbed, but also bad mood, boredom, and fun.

The consequences of this is that the experience of mobbing is damaging and

debilitating. Cybermobbing victims often face severe psychological
consequences: One fourth of the respondents voiced suicidal thoughts.

As the study quoted by Süddeutsche Zeitung reveals, parents can control the
online activities of children and youth less and less40. First, because the younger
generation is using both social media and instant messaging, e.g. Whatsapp,
Snapchat, where humiliating comments, compromising photographs or vicious
insults content can be disseminated at lightning speed. Second, because
personal mobile devices like smartphones or tablets are harder to control
compared to computers where security settings were determined by the parents.

To fight cybermobbing, there needs to be a consolidated effort on the side of

teachers, parents and young people.

What parents can do

● Acquire competences about safer Internet issues for children and young
people.
● Study information on how to deal with cyberbullying and hate speech from
a wide array of online sites that provide advice to users of any age:

39
https://www.sueddeutsche.de/panorama/jugendliche-im-internet-13-prozent-der-schueler-sehen-
sich-als-opfer-von-cybermobbing-1.3507917
40
ibid.
 ● The platform Better Internet For Kids betterinternetforkids.eu was set up
in line with the European Commission's Better Internet for Kids strategy to
foster the exchange of knowledge, expertise, resources and best practices
between key online safety stakeholders to increase access to high-quality
content for children and young people, step up awareness and
empowerment, create a safe environment for children online, and fight
against child sexual abuse and child sexual exploitation.
● The European network of Safer Internet Centres41 works on these issues
across Europe typically comprising an awareness centre, helpline, hotline
and youth panel.
● The No Hate Speech online campaign launched by the Council of Europe in
July 2016 also provides advice. Initiatives against hate speech like
#ichbinhier on Facebook are also winning over more followers, as are
digital civil rights movements like German moderator Jan Böhmermann’s
“Reconquista Internet”.

What teachers and youth workers can do

● Acquire competences about safer Internet issues for children and young
people.
● Initiate (cyber)mobbing prevention programmes in the school or youth
centres
● Be informed about existing initiatives to advise young people further, e.g.
klicksafe initiative’s cyberbullying first aid app42, local or national
cyberbullying hotline, etc.

What young people can do

● Collect the proofs via screenshots.

● If you know a mobber write to him/her and ask him/her to delete the
insulting comments or pictures.
● Block the mobbers in the social networks
● Seek support of an adult whom you trust (teacher, parent, therapist)
● Report mobbing posts to the web host and request to delete its content
● In especially strong cases go to the police with your parents and file a
criminal report. The law is on your side!

Protecting privacy

Privacy is defined as “the rights of individuals to enjoy autonomy, to be left

alone, and to determine whether and how information about one’s self is
revealed to others”.43

41
https://www.betterinternetforkids.eu/web/portal/policy/insafe-inhope
42
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=de.teamdna.cybermobbing&hl=en
Although privacy is a basic human right and need, researchers speak of privacy
paradox on the Internet: our privacy concerns are inconsistent with our online
behaviour and desire to disclose.

Nowadays, most young people easily display personal information that previous
generations often have regarded as private, e.g. age, politics, income, religion,
sexual preference. Young people’s understanding of privacy is not tied to the
disclosure of certain types of information. Rather, their privacy is assured when
they think they can control who knows what about them. When it comes to
social media, users are still unsure how to control who can see what about them.
The reasons are limited internet literacy, poorly designed site settings and recent
data protection scandals (e.g. giving away Facebook user data to Cambridge
Analytics 2018).

To ensure privacy on social media can be difficult. As a new research study

suggests, even if you set your profile to “not public” and carefully limit all
information about yourself, Facebook and/or other social media sources can still
collect the data about you from the data of just 8-9 of your friends who are on
social media. Even after you have deleted your accounts, you can still be profiled
based on personal information derived from your friends’ posts.44 Posting
information and pictures of people who are not on Facebook, e.g. your children,
friends or grandparents means first, that you need permission and consent from
a person to do so, and second, you need to be aware that you might
unknowingly grant access to their personal information to marketing companies
that use algorithms and store it in the world wide web. Even deleting your
accounts from social media might not solve all privacy problems.

Although there is no ultimate solution to social media privacy, here is what

young people can do to protect their privacy on the Internet:

● Consider carefully what personal details you provide in your profile

● Change your passwords on a regular basis
● Your password should have a minimum of 8 symbols, big and small
letters, as well as figures.
● Use different passwords for different accounts and keep them to yourself
● Update your privacy settings on social media accounts
● Log out always, especially in public places, so that nobody can use your
account
● Abstain from online payments if you’re using public WiFi networks

43
The privacy paradox on social network sites revisited 2009.
https://cyberpsychology.eu/article/view/4223/3265
44
https://www.cpomagazine.com/data-privacy/new-research-study-shows-that-social-media-privacy-
might-not-be-possible/
 ● Use software to manage and control your online privacy, for example
Norton Privacy Manager or Norton LifeLock
● Be aware of ‘shoulder surfing' - the practice of spying on the user of a
cash-dispensing machine or other electronic device in order to obtain their
personal identification number, password, etc. To avoid it, sit with your
back to the wall if you’re in a public place and entering personal or
financial information into your computer or cellphone. More tips available
here: https://www.lifelock.com/learn-identity-theft-resources-what-is-
shoulder-surfing.html

Understanding emotions

Emotion is by far the most important motivator of our thinking and behaviour.
People make most of their decisions based on how they’re feeling, whether they
realize it or not. Social media researcher G.T. Panger described the impact of
emotions on social media in this way: “Emotion is the outrage and hope that
fuels social media social movements from the Arab Spring to Black Lives Matter,
and it is the hostility that silenced women in Gamergate. Emotion is the sadness
that spreads through social media upon the death of a celebrity or in the wake of
another mass shooting. Emotion is the happy life we are concerned with
portraying to our friends, the moments of satisfaction we cannot wait to tell the
world about, and the envy of receiving the highlights of our friends’ lives while
we carry on with ordinary life”45.
As the research of the Center for Generational Kinetics shows, social media has a
greater effect on a person’s life the younger they are, influencing their job
prospects, popularity, chances of getting a date and even their happiness: 42%
of Generation Z feels that social media has a great impact on their lives. An
equal number of 42% believes that social media affects the way other people
see them; 39% say social media has an effect on their self-esteem and 37% say
social media has a direct impact on their happiness (although it remains unclear
how exactly), which is twice as much as in the generation of baby boomers46.

Emotional Intelligence is a crucial aspect of digital wellbeing. According to

Wikipedia47, it is “the capability of individuals to recognize their own emotions
and those of others, discern between different feelings and label them
appropriately, use emotional information to guide thinking and behavior, and
manage and/or adjust emotions to adapt to environments or achieve one's
goal(s)”. For young people specifically, it means being aware of how they
express themselves through Instagram images, Facebook posts and Twitter
comments. Also, it means being aware of how social media content and activities
they are engaged in (likes, comments, shares) affect them.
45
Galen Thomas Panger. Emotion in social media. 2017.
http://people.ischool.berkeley.edu/~gpanger/dissertation/emotion_in_social_media.pdf
46
https://genhq.com/igen-genz-social-media-trends-infographic/
47
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emotional_intelligence
Self-expression on social media

Social media enable users to express themselves freely through status updates,
mood updates, comments, as well as pictures and emoticons. At the same time,
it can be a source of pressure and expectations for young people raising
questions about their self-identity and about the emotions they feel browsing
through the stream of messages, images and videos.

The link between users’ “catalogue of expressions” and their mental health has
been studied by researchers to make inferences about users’ emotional lives,
generate national happiness indices and predict mental illnesses.

According to a recent BBC #LikeMinded study48, researchers from Harvard

University and the University of Vermont used machine analysis of almost
44,000 Instagram posts to identify depressive signals in users’ feeds. According
to that study, signals of depression include an increase in negative words (“no”,
“never”, “prison”, “murder”) and a decrease in positive ones (“happy”, “beach”,
and “photo”), though these are hardly definitive. Taking it a step further,
researchers at Harvard University, Stanford University and the University of
Vermont extracted a wider range of features (mood, language and context) from
almost 280,000 tweets and scored highly on identifying users with depression; it
also was correct in about nine of every 10 predictions for post-traumatic stress
disorder (PTSD).

Some recent technological innovations in this field include analyzing the patterns
of words people are using in their tweets to understand how a person is feeling
right now. There is free text analysis tool AnalyzeWords on Twitter which focuses
on junk words (pronouns, articles, prepositions) to assess emotional and
thinking styles. If you are on Twitter, you can check your recent words and see
how you’re scoring for being angry, worried or upbeat compared to the average.
You can also try it out with young people. For example, Donald Trump’s Twitter
account @realdonaldtrump shows that he scores highly on having an upbeat
emotional style, and is less likely than average to be worried, angry, and
depressed.

Users’ emotions on social media and users’ emotional life should however be
separated to avoid the risk of packaging the complex real life in a virtual box of
social media. Likewise, status updates and Instagram stories cannot be a reliable
measure of our mental health. Self-expression and self-presentation may also
not always reveal the true “You”. There is an opinion that we tend to portray
ourselves in an idealized, overly positive fashion like playing a character which is

48
http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20180201-how-your-social-media-betrays-your-mood
a desired version of ourselves, and for this we may downplay our negative
emotions.

Impact of other users’ posts

Although there is a lack of evidence about the emotional experience while we

browse social media, many users report that their habit of browsing makes them
feel bad. They find it not very meaningful and it eats up a lot of time. In
addition, browsing through social media may make you compare your life
unfavorably to the rosy depictions of others’ lives, generate envy and a feeling of
worthlessness or pressure trying to compete with others for leading a perfect
life.

Comparison negatively impacts our well-being. Especially because someone’s

profile on social media would not reveal a complete picture of a complex
personality. According to social researcher Galen Thomas, people tend to
underestimate the prevalence of negative emotions and overestimate the
prevalence of positive emotions in others’ lives because of the way others
selectively hide negative emotions in social settings. Underestimating the
negative emotions in others’ lives is a predictor of loneliness and overestimating
positive emotions predicts lower life satisfaction49.

Having said that, it is important to bear in mind that not everything young
people see on social media may be true. Also, it is helpful to discuss with young
people what kind of image they are trying to project in public with their posts
and updates. How does it affect their self-worth? And how often do they
compare themselves with others? Ultimately, what is the opportunity cost (the
value of making this choice) of browsing vs. getting the benefits? Answering
these questions may be helpful to decide how we can spend time in a more
productive manner and build the life we strive for.

The mind of a teenager is still figuring out how to recognise, understand and
express what he or she is feeling. Parents and youth workers can help young
people to deal with emotions. The Australian child- and youth-oriented project
Healthy families advises both parents and tutors on how to do it50:

● Ask about their feelings – “You look worried. Is there something on your
mind?” or, “It sounds like you’re really angry. What’s wrong?”
● Listen to your teenager when he or she talks about emotions. This helps
him or her to identify and understand what he or she is feeling and to
manage his or her emotions effectively.

49
s. Galen Thomas.
50
https://healthyfamilies.beyondblue.org.au/age-13/raising-resilient-young-people/managing-
emotions-and-stress
 ● Do not dismiss or trivialise your teenager’s emotional responses. This may
be interpreted as “my feelings are unimportant”.
● Avoid responding in a way that could lead them to believe that their
emotions are wrong and that they are bad for having them, e.g. “Why are
you crying like a baby?” or “You’re such a wuss!”
● Validate their feelings, especially if they’re upset or struggling with what’s
going on – for example, when a pet dies, when they’re having issues with
friends, or when they fail an exam.
● Encourage young people to talk about problems when they happen so
they can be sorted out earlier.
● Help them find ways to relax that work for them – listening to music,
going for a run or doing something creative.
● Some young people also benefit from meditation or guided relaxation.
Smiling Mind has a free App including short guided meditations.
● Suggest they plan their week and figure out their deadlines and how
they’re going to get their study/work done.
● Suggest that your adolescent leaves big decisions until they’re feeling a
bit better and able to approach the situation more objectively.
● Talk about the messages and images young people receive through the
media or their social feeds. How does it shape their values, perceptions
and general wellbeing?

STEP 2. Create new habits

What causes habits

Habits by definition are the things we are so used to that they become our
default, even when we know better. As James Clear, psychologist and author of
the best-selling book “Atomic Habits” (2018), points out, two major reasons
causing unhealthy habits are stress and boredom51. Whether we spend hours on
the Internet mindlessly browsing through the timeline, bite nails over the
homework or get drunk on the weekend, these are our ways to deal with stress
and boredom. Recognizing the causes of your habits is crucial to overcoming
them. Many of the habits we form are not conscious. They are based on learned
behavior from role models - parents, teachers, friends, family members and
other persons of influence we had in our childhood or chose as role models up to
the present time.

51
James Clear, Atomic Habits:
https://books.google.de/books/about/Atomic_Habits.html?id=lFhbDwAAQBAJ&source=kp_book_de
scription&redir_esc=y
When it comes to young people, if everyone in their friends’ or family circle is
constantly on the phone checking messages, they are most likely to repeat it.

Golden Rule of habit change

The change of habits is a tricky thing. It is said to be out of our control because
our behaviors are biologically programmed processes, or subconscious processes
ingrained in us at a deep level.
However, if we understand why habits exist and how they work, we are able to
change them.

First of all, we need to see that all habits - good and bad - provide us with some
benefit. For example, checking your social media accounts makes you feel
connected. At the same time, looking at those messages destroys your
productivity, splits your attention, and overwhelms you with stress. But, it
prevents you from feeling like you're “missing out” … and so you do it again52.

Since “bad” habits also address certain needs in your life it's very difficult to
simply eliminate them. This is why an advice like “just stop doing it” does not
work. For example, if you grab your mobile phone when you get bored or
socially insecure, it's a bad plan to leave your phone at home every time that
happens.

James Clear explains it more clearly: “If you expect yourself to simply cut out
bad habits without replacing them, then you'll have certain needs that will be
unmet and it's going to be hard to stick to a routine of “just don't do it” for very
long”53. Instead, we need to replace a bad habit with a new habit that provides a
similar benefit and is easy and attractive to do.

Charles Duhigg, author of another famous book on habits “The Power of Habit”
(2014), came up with a model of Habit Loop to explain how our habits are
54
formed. He broke it down into three main areas :

1. Cues: The triggers that stimulate our behaviours (e.g. boredom,

insecurity).
2. Routines: The regular activities that form part of our daily lives (e.g.
checking the phone, drinking in the evenings).

52
James Clear, Reset the Room. https://jamesclear.com/reset-the-room
53
ibid.
54
https://coolerinsights.com/2013/11/mastering-the-power-of-habits/
 3. Rewards: The positive outcomes, e.g. real or perceived payback of
habits which reinforces our behaviours (feeling connected, relieved,
relaxed).

Duhigg shared that any habit can be changed if you identify the cue (the
trigger), the reward you crave for, the routine you perform normally to get the
reward, and change the routine when the cue appears so that you get the same
reward. This is the Golden Rule of Habit Change: keeping your cues and rewards
but providing a new routine.

Image source: https://throughyourbody.com/charles-duhigg-golden-rule-habit-

change/
As you can see from the example in this graphic, stress can trigger us to turn to
alcohol each time we feel the craving for relief. We get a sense of relief from
doing this, and this is our reward. If the reward is positive, we will have a desire
to repeat the action the next time a cue (trigger) pops up.
However, alcohol is a bad habit which may lead to addiction. Also, the reward of
relief from getting drunk lasts only for a while. That is why we do it over and
over again.
A new example in the graphic shows that next time when we get stressed (cue)
and crave for relief (reward), instead of turning to alcohol we can turn to friends
(or seek professional help) and thus insert a new routine into our behavior.
By changing habits, we change our behavior, and it has an impact on our life.
The second thing which helps us change our behavior is changing the way we
think and feel about ourselves. When you know what is good for you, you can
come up with new ways and healthy habits arising out of this insight. You have
no desire to indulge in what is bad and love your sense of well-being and mental
clarity. This is a profound shift since you are no longer forcing yourself to live a
healthy digital lifestyle and that’s the distinction. Then you no longer need a
digital diet to control cravings, to cut down on Internet consumption, because
these things are no longer you.
Even though we might understand and agree with these points, it might be still a
challenge to implement it practically. The next section provides some concrete
and easy-to-do steps on installing your new habits in your daily life.

How to create a new habit

Here are some additional ideas for installing new healthy habits and breaking the
old cycle55.

1. Start with awareness.

● When does your habit actually happen?
● How many times do you do it each day?
● Where do you do it? When? And with whom?
● What triggers the behavior and causes it to start?

2. Track your habits.

Tracking these issues will make you more aware of your behavior and give you
dozens of ideas for stopping it. Put a piece of paper in your pocket and a pen.
Each time your habit happens, mark it down on your paper. At the end of the
day, count up all of the daily marks and see what your total is. Then, identify
what you want to change (“bad” habit).

3. Choose a healthy substitute.

Next time you face stress, boredom, or people whose behavior you usually
imitate, what are you going to do? When your mates are staring into their
phones (example: go for a walk), or when you read a sensational news
(example: check sources if it’s true), come up with a plan for what you will do
instead of what you usually do. If you have a plan, you are “armed” with tools
and a replacement behavior. If you are lost, think of a reason why you shouldn’t
continue with this habit. This is a key step. When you do something different to
replace an unhealthy habit, acknowledge to yourself that you are doing it

55
James Clear, Reset the Room. https://jamesclear.com/reset-the-room, Psychology Today. 10 steps
to changing unhealthy habits: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/renaissance-
woman/201607/how-change-unhealthy-habits
differently, so that you can emphasize your ability to change. It can be as simple
as saying to yourself, “Look at that. I made a better choice.”

4. Remove triggers.
Make it easier on yourself to break bad habits by avoiding the things that cause
them. If the first thing you do in the morning is mindless scrolling, liking, sharing
instant messages, then put the phone into another room before going to bed,
and wait until you are really awake to engage in online activities more mindfully.
If you eat cookies when they are in the house, then throw them all away.
Right now, your environment makes your bad habit easier and good habits
harder. Design your environment in the way to make the good behaviors easier
and the bad behaviors harder.

5. Set up for good habits.

If you want to do sports in the morning, prepare a set of clothes and a water
bottle ahead of time so that you can easily grab it. If you want to draw more,
put your pencils, pens and a notebook on top of your desk within easy reach.
Master habits of preparation so that habits of execution become easy.

6. Join forces with somebody.

Pair up with someone to install good habits together. The two of you can hold
each other accountable and celebrate your victories together. Knowing that
someone else expects you to be better is a powerful motivator.

7. Surround yourself with inspirational people.

Sometimes certain people are our triggers. Remember that you end up being
like the five people you hang out with most. Look at who those people are: do
they inspire you or drag you down? People who live the way you want to live and
pursue their goals in life the way you want to pursue yours are powerful
motivators to pimp up your habits and go for a vision.

8. Visualize yourself succeeding.

See yourself building a new identity. Waking up early, doing sports, meeting
friends, traveling, having offline time for yourself. Whatever the bad habit is that
you are looking to break, visualize yourself crushing it, smiling, and enjoying
your success. Visualization retrains your brain. The longing for positive change
may form the basis of a new habit as we instinctively reach for things that are
good for us.

Building a new identity does not mean becoming someone else. It means
returning to a healthier version of yourself who you were without that habit so
you can be sure you can do it again.

9. Monitor your negative self–talk.

One thing about battling bad habits is that it's easy to judge yourself for not
acting better. Every time you slip up or make a mistake, it's easy to tell yourself
how much you suck.
Whenever that happens, finish the sentence with “but”:
● “I’m fat and out of shape, but I could be in shape a few months from
now.”
● “I’m stupid and nobody respects me, but I'm working to develop a
valuable skill.”
● “I'm a failure, but everybody fails sometimes.”
● I’m addicted to my smartphone, but I could reduce my online time to
have more hobbies.

Or reframe your thoughts with a positive affirmation and restrain the judgmental
brain:
● No one likes me - I’m working on my confidence”
Reframing is like rewriting the script.

10. Accept failures.

We all get off track. Accept that you will sometimes fail. We all do. When you do,
treat yourself with compassion. Habits don’t change overnight. Take baby steps,
if necessary. Even if you can’t follow through 100% right away with a whole new
habit, turn something new into habit. Even if it is not one hour to exercise, find
15 minutes to squeeze in and reinforce that new habit. What separates top
performers from everyone else is that they get back on track very quickly.

Last but not least, remember that creating new healthy habits takes time and
effort, but mostly it takes perseverance. Most people who succeed try and fail
multiple times before they make it work. You might not have success right away,
but that doesn't mean you can't have it at all.

STEP 3. Apply new habits in daily life

This step encompasses two other steps. When you are aware of how and why
fake news is created and when you know how to counteract it, the next thing is
to implement your strategies. Habits only change with action.

Be aware of your old habits

For young people, learning new skills like social competence, critical thinking,
emotional intelligence may require overcoming the resistance of “old habits”.
Developing new habits and applying them in daily life may need time and
commitment. It is not always easy to include these new behaviors into daily
routines but knowing how to react differently is a first step. Seeing the benefits
in acting differently and thinking differently may motivate young people to new
digital behavior.
In the sphere of digital wellbeing and digital literacy, new habits could be:
● Think before you “like”/ “share”
● Check sources of the news and/or several information sources
● Read more profound news
● Get involved with different opinions (get out of the filter bubble)
● Spend enough time with offline friends to reconnect to the real physical
world
● Notice, acknowledge and express how you emotionally react to
information found on the web, e.g. I get so jealous when I see the
pictures of that girl/guy with my ex. I feel afraid whenever I read the
news about climate collapse.
● Reflect about your personal online behavior: Do I lie online? Do I leave
out necessary information? Do I exaggerate about my successes?
● Notice and report fake news.

Know how to react differently to fake news

According to a survey among young people conducted in the Fake OFF project in
2018, young people change habits when old habits get boring. Interests,
hobbies, friends change when they learn something new and interesting (from
school, family, friends, Internet). In this sense, changing habits among young
people happens mostly unconsciously and reactively. Changing a habit is,
however, a conscious act. What may also motivate young people are role
models. Having someone with a positive influence, someone whose habits you
can follow and make yours is empowering and makes it easier to change
behavioral habits.

Observing social media, the appeal for young people is not to use it less but use
it more intentionally. Stop mindless scrolling, complaining, hating and engaging
in negativity and bitterness. Follow people who motivate and inspire you. Engage
with experts you can learn from. Create genuine, positive friendships.

There is a range of literature on how to change habits and apply them in daily
life (see self-help blogs56 and books57 for further information). The most
important thing for young people is that they engage in the new ways of
behavior consciously and willingly and get the support they need on the way.

56
See How to Change Unhealthy Habits: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/renaissance-
woman/201607/how-change-unhealthy-habits, How to break soul-sucking habits:
https://www.nirandfar.com/how-to-break-5-soul-sucking-technology-habits/
57
The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg, Daily Rituals: How Artists Work by Mason Currey, Hooked
by Nir Eyal,The Slight Edge by Jeff Olson
4. Training young people in key competences

4.1. Exercises and games

The following chapter presents the exercises for teachers and tutors around the
three-step competence model: how to strengthen digital literacy of young
people, how to create new habits for digital wellbeing and how to apply them in
daily life.

The teachers and tutors are free to select the exercises which suit their group
most, according to the level, time constraints, setting, etc., or use the formats
for a two-hour, four-hour, day activity (s. previous section).

Training with young people can be held in both school and extracurricular
setting. It can be integrated in special subjects (e.g. digital comp or become part
of traditional classroom activities. In the youth centres, this training can be part
of their activities in the field of media literacy.
All exercises are designed in the spirit of non-formal learning, so their ultimate
goal is to foster young people’s capacity to take responsibility for their personal
learning through reflecting, evaluating, asking questions, giving feedback,
voicing their feelings, their doubts about “news”, observing and listening.

STEP 1. Strengthen digital literacy

4.1.1. Warm Up Quiz

Partner: ÖIAT
Source: ÖIAT

Objective: to have an engaging dynamic start into the topic digital literacy and
foster first discussions among young people with young people

Duration: 15-20 minutes

Number of participants: 10+

Age: any

Difficulty level: easy

Conditions/Format: group activity

Material: PowerPoint Presentation, Computer, Projector

Preparation: Selection of statements

Description:

The participants are standing all over the room. The corners of the room are
named “yes” and “no” (or “agree” “disagree”). The trainer presents different
statements on a PowerPoint Presentation, e.g.:

I use my phone every 10 minutes.

I use WhatsApp, Snapchat, Facebook, YouTube, TikTok.
My phone is my only source for news.
We need to learn more about fake news in schools.
I just got this WhatsApp message: I should send it to 10 friends, or my mother
dies in 1 year. I know it is bullsh*, but I pass it on anyway. It’s fun, isn’t it?
Of course I know how to recognize fake news.
I know what I should do if I find Fake News or someone spreads it.
I don’t care that there are fake news on social media.
Influencers always tell the truth.
Influencers do not have an effect on me.
Young people have less problems recognizing fake news than older ones.
It is never too early to learn how to recognize fake news.

Everyone stands in the corner they agree with the most. The trainer asks why
they agree or don’t agree and let the participants start a discussion.

Tips for Trainers:

● The statements should be easy and connected to everyday life. There
should be no facts that are “right” or “wrong”. Every participant is right in
their decision and should only explain why he/she thinks that way. When
the participants are asked why they are standing on one specific site,
there can also be asked a general question “Do you think that teachers
would do a good job teaching you about Fake News?” that should lead the
participants into the discussion. Include funny statements like “I want to
sit down” at the end of the exercise.
● At the beginning the trainer could add some other questions (not
specifically about the topic but more general ones) to break the ice.
● It is important to observe if there are group dynamics where some
participants follow the others instead of thinking by themselves to the
answer, especially with the younger ones.
● More time could be needed for bigger groups.
Tags: #fakenews, #changethehabits, #medialiteracy
   

4.1.2. Find and report misleading accounts

Partner: ÖIAT
Source: ÖIAT

Objective: Train the critical thinking skills by spotting misleading accounts in

social media networks, knowing how to report them; become aware of and
familiar with different reporting mechanisms on social media platforms.

Duration: 10 min - 2 hours, depending on the results

Number of participants: 1-5

Age: 10+

Difficulty: average

Format/Conditions: Access to social media platforms, especially those that

participants use, e.g. on their own smartphones.

Material: Participants’ smartphones, a bell in the room.

Preparation: Check the reporting mechanism in frequently used social media

platforms.

Description: This can be done as a challenge or just by reflecting with the

participants.
Everybody looks through his/her own social media stream and tries to detect
misleading accounts. Those accounts which spread fake news, misinformation,
non-declared commercials. If a person is not sure whether this is a misleading
account, they push the bell. Then all participants stop their own search and
come to help to judge this account. After a decision (report or not report) is
done, everybody goes back to their own search.

If they find misleading accounts, they report them within the network.
Every reporting issue is being documented via screenshot.
While all participants discuss the accounts, they develop the criteria how to
detect it. Write those down on a piece of paper and discuss them, either after
the game or sometime later (a week or so).
If it is done as a challenge, two winners can be identified:
● those who reported most
● those who had very little or no misleading accounts in their social media
stream

Tips for Trainers:

● Do a follow up a week later.

Questions for debriefing: A week later, discuss the topic again:

● Have we found more such accounts?
● Have we reported more such content?
● Have we changed our habits?
● Have we unfollowed some accounts?

Tags: #fakeaccounts #criticalthinking #digitalliteracy

4.1.3. Hoax factory: trace the evil

Partner: ÖIAT
Source: ÖIAT

Objective: learn how to trace fake articles and assess how information is being
spread by hoax factories.

Duration: 10 min - 2 hours, depending on success

Number of participants: 1-20

Age: 13+

Difficulty: advanced

Format/Conditions: group activity

Material: tablets or laptops of an organization. Do not use digital devices of

participants, since this exercise will change their search results and more hoaxes
might be shown in future. Either use a TOR browser or tablets/Laptops of an
organization. Delete cookies and search history after the session.

Preparation: Search for 1-3 articles that can be traced. They change quite often,
so a bit of research is necessary.
Description: The trainer needs to explain what a hoax factory is and what their
products are.
Then, it is needed to select one article and try to trace it: Which online
magazines use this article? Who is quoting it? Each participant chooses a fake
news article which is definitely a fake (e.g. already shown by fake-hunter
organizations). Now they search for the content and the pictures online to see
where it is being spread and how viral it is already. Search for pictures and text
separately, since they might not be connected at all in further publications.
Which publications report this fake news? Which newspapers or other media use
this article? Which comments can be found? Watch out for publication dates to
see who published the content first.
Draw a map on a flipchart how the news is being spread.

Tips for Trainers:

● This exercise can be frustrating, and a lot of patience is necessary. Embed
this exercise in a game or a result that patience is worth for. This could be
to prepare a training for parents/young people, other group. Or do a
challenge and select a winner in the end.
● If the content is disturbing, reflect on what to do in such a situation and
how one can deal with anger and fear. Raise self-confidence of
participants, so that they know how to react and what to do.

Questions for debriefing:

● What did you see?
● What emotions did it cause?
● How to deal with it?
● How can you assess the information in a different way next time?

Tags: #hoax #hoaxfactory

4.1.4. Why & what in horror movies

Partner: ÖIAT
Source: “Medien und Gewalt”. Handbook for Teachers, 2015, in German.
https://www.saferinternet.at/fileadmin/categorized/Materialien/Medien_und_Ge
walt.pdf

Objective:
● to be aware of how violence in the media is generated and which criteria
can be used to create horror or pranks in the movies.
● analyse such movies, find criteria for the movies.
● produce your own film if possible and use all possible horror/violence
criteria
 ● be aware that violence (in videos) are often content for spread fake news

Duration: up to 2 weeks

Number of participants: 1-10

Age: 14+

Difficulty: advanced

Format/Conditions: a group project. There must be a youth worker who can

support young people over a longer period, first to discuss and analyse violence-
driven films, then in the production process.

Material: Filming equipment, editing equipment.

Preparation: find a group for the project, find a place where the final product can
be shown.

Description:
Phase 1. The participants discuss with each other how prank or horror films are
working, which tools are used in order to create suspense or misleading content.
This can be done by watching such films together or using prepared clips. Note:
Most of the time, the participants will be legally too young to watch this kind of
content, but they will watch it anyhow in their homes or with friends.
Phase 2. The participants create a movie using the “horror” making criteria.

Tips for Trainers:

● Since violent content of film might not be suitable for the age group you
are working with, you might be in a legal grey area.

Questions for debriefing:

● Discuss what to do if the content bothers you, causes fear or psychological
issues.

Tags: #violence #unsuitablecontent

4.1.5. Social Network training for younger ones

Partner: ÖIAT
Source: Teachers Handbook “Selbstdarstellung im Internet”, 2014. In German.
https://www.saferinternet.at/fileadmin/categorized/Materialien/Unterrichtsmater
ial_Selbstdarstellung_Web.pdf
Objective: Prepare a training for younger participants and show them different
social networks, what to take care of, how to set privacy settings.

Duration: 1-3 hours, depending on the products

Number of participants: 1-30

Age: 10+

Difficulty: average

Format/Conditions: Ask participants to reflect on their own behaviour and ask

them to transfer their knowledge

Material: digital devices with access to Internet.

Preparation: Collect topics that are relevant for younger Internet users,
especially in the field of fake news. Develop a tool and format which could be
used for a training: a poster, a PPT, a short video, games, etc.

Description:
Ask participants to give some examples of fake news: Which is most relevant?
New?
Play a game or use a poster/PowerPoint (see preparation).
Do a debriefing to stimulate learning.

Tips for Trainers:

● This exercise is helpful, even without the actual training of younger ones.
It creates a good reflecting situation for any age group.

Questions for debriefing:

● What was surprising?
● What was easy?
● What did we learn?

Tags: #fakenews, #training, #learningbyteaching, #poster, #creative

4.1.6. Search routines for younger ones

Partner: ÖIAT
Source: ÖIAT
Objective: Learn and train search routines, how online search and source check
can be done effectively without using too much time.

Duration: 1 hour

Number of participants: 1-10

Age: 12+

Difficulty: average

Format/Conditions: group activities.

Material: digital tools which can be used for online search.

Preparation: if possible, prepare a setting where this training can be really held.

Description:
Stage 1: identify the areas which are relevant for younger kids for doing the
search. This can be school topics, but also fake news topics, such as the content
in chain letters, rumours spread in social networks, health topics, etc. Choose 1-
3 areas and select search terms that are helpful while searching a topic.
Try different search engines and compare the results: e.g. google.com,
startpage.com, qwant.com (European search engine).
Stage 2: develop a training session, e.g. as a short game on this search routine.
Stage 3: conduct the training, if possible, and reflect learnings afterwards.

Tips for Trainers:

● This exercise is even helpful, if the actual training for younger ones
cannot be conducted (due to organizational reasons). It creates a good
reflecting situation for any age group.

Questions for debriefing:

● What was surprising?
● What was easy?
● What did we learn?
● Can that be done on a daily routine?

Tags: #fakenews, #training, #learningbyteaching, #game, #creative, #search,

#onlinesearch, #searchterms, #searchengines
4.1.7. Pass the ball, pass the fake!

Partner: GoEurope
Source: GoEurope

Objective: To raise awareness about how easy it is to create fake facts and how,
sometimes, they are very difficult to identify as fake.

Duration: 10-15 mins.

Number of participants: 10-25

Age: 14+

Difficulty level: easy

Conditions/Format: Group activity

Material: A ball (or another object that can be passed by participants)

Preparation: It is necessary to have a wide space where participants can create

a circle, so everyone sees each other. Create a circle with the participants and
take a ball (or an object) to explain the game.

Description: The person who has the ball needs to say one thing about
him/herself. Whatever he/she says can be true or fake. While the person with
the ball is saying the sentence about him/herself, he/she passes the ball to
another person. The person who takes the ball needs to guess if that statement
is true or fake. If he/she guesses correctly, the person receiving the ball gets 1
point. If he/she guesses wrong, the person sending the ball gets 1 point. You
can make as many rounds as you want. At the end of the game, there will be a
winner (or a group of winners) who identified correctly what was true and what
was fake.

Tips for Trainers:

● The trainer can reward the winner(s). This activity can also work as
“getting to know each other” activity in an event where participants
haven’t known each other previously (e.g. 1st day in a youth exchange).
● Depending on the size of the group, the duration of the exercise can be up
to 30 minutes - this should be considered by the trainer.
● For this exercise it is advisable to plan a short preparation time in which
the participants can think about their own fake news.
● This exercise can also be performed well outside.
Questions for debriefing:
● Creating fake things about yourself, was it easy or hard?
● Did you have difficulties in identifying the fake statements?
● When using social media, have you ever thought that other people can
share
● fake things about their lives as well?
● Is it hard to identify fake facts on social media?

Tags: #selfpresentation #detect #fakeimage

4.1.8. Prototyping reliable & fake posts

Partner: GoEurope

Source: GoEurope

Objective: To identify the key elements that participants need to check in order
to make the difference between a reliable post and a fake post.

Duration: 45-60 mins.

Number of participants:10-30

Age: 16+

Difficulty level: advanced

Conditions/Formal: Group activity

Material: Flipcharts, markers, pencils, pens, colours, post-its, colour papers,

scissors, tape. At least, each small group needs to have a flipchart and markers.
Then, the rest of materials can work for boosting the creativity of the groups.

Preparation: Participants need to have social media profiles, as well as

experience using social media. The trainer needs some knowledge about fake
news and the key elements to identify fake news (check the FAKE OFF! General
Didactic Concept). The big group (10-30 people) needs to be split in smaller
groups. Depending on the number of the big group, smaller groups can have
between 3 to 5 members. The trainer needs to prepare a piece of paper with a
topic (health, politics, celebrities, etc.) and saying if that topic is “true” or “fake”.
Description: Each small group needs to create a social media post on the
flipchart. Such post depends on the paper that the trainer gives to each group.
In that paper, the group gets the information about the topic of the post, and if
the post needs to be true or fake. Then, the groups create the posts and they
are exposed on the wall. In plenary, participants check the posts and use a post-
it to say if the post is fake or true (a post-it per participant and per post).
Finally, the results can be discussed in the plenary and true and fake posts can
be revealed.

Tips for Trainers:

● Before starting, the trainer can decide which social media post he/she
wants the group to create (Instagram, Facebook, etc.) and review the
main elements of that specific social media posts (author, text, time when
the post was launched, language use, pictures or videos, comments, etc.)

Questions for debriefing:

● Was it hard/easy to create your post? Why?
● When creating the true/fake post, what did you think was the most
important thing to show that the post was true or fake?

Tags: #fakenews #identify #medialiteracy #detect

4.1.9. Let’s become fake authors!

Partner: GoEurope

Source: GoEurope

Objective: To identify the key features of fake news messages and texts

Duration: 20-25 mins.

Number of participants: 10-20

Age: 16+

Difficulty level: average

Conditions/Format: Individual exercise, pairs exercise or group activity

Material: pieces of paper where participants can write down the messages/texts
of the fake posts/news, pens, pencils
Preparation: It is not necessary, but it is better if participants have social media,
as well as experience using social media. It is not necessary, but it is better if
the trainer has some knowledge about fake news and the key elements to
identify fake news (check the FAKE OFF General Didactic Concept). Choose and
present a common incident to participants; so they know which incident they
need to alter.

Description: Participants have a common incident to report (chosen by the

trainer). The idea is that they are “fake reporters” so they need to create a
post/news that alters the real fact. The participants have time to alter the real
fact and then they share their fake posts/news (text).

Tips for Trainers:

● The exercise can be done in small groups or individually. In addition, the
common incident needs to be familiar to participants (e.g. school or high
school events, participants’ activities, etc.)

Questions for debriefing:

● What did you alter to make it fake?
● Do we check those elements to see if social media posts are fake or not?

Tags: #fakenews #identify #medialiteracy #detect #creativity

4.1.10. Where is my truth?

Partner: GoEurope

Source: GoEurope

Objective: To raise awareness on how messages are shared through social

media, and to highlight the need of going/checking the original source

Duration: 15-20 mins.

Number of participants: 10-20

Age: 13+

Difficulty level: easy

Conditions/Format: Group activity

Material: --

Preparation: It is necessary to have a wide space where participants can create

a circle.

Description: The participants sit down in a circle. There is one person (“original
source”) who starts a message. Such message can be a personal experience, an
invented story, a piece of news, etc. It needs to have 3-4 sentences, for
example. Then, the “original source” whispers the message to the person on
his/her left side. Once the second person gets the message, he/she needs to
whisper to the person on his/her left side. But he/she needs to modify a word
(only substantive, pronoun, number or adjective -it cannot be a minor word).
Then, the next one repeats the process and so on, until the messages gets the
“original source”. The “original source” then tells everyone the message he/she
got and the original message. The group then can discuss about the difference
between the last message and the original message.

Tips for Trainers:

● Highlight the fact of changing one word per person and the type of word.
In addition, the trainer can be the “original source” if he/she wants, so
he/she assures that the message has 2-4 sentences and many elements
to modify by the rest of the participants.
● For larger groups (20+ participants) is is advisable to split the group into
2 smaller groups.
● This exercise can also be adapted to younger participants, but then an
adjustment should be made in terms of time, pre-meeting and debriefing.
● For participants over the age of 16, when the trainer acts as the "original
source", he/she should find appealing stories or sentences.

Questions for debriefing:

● What do you think about the difference between the original message and
the final message?
● Don’t you have the feeling that the same thing that happened in the
activity happens on social media as well? Why?
● Have you ever altered/modified and shared (posts, private messages,
etc.) a story you got on social media?

Tags: #fakenews #rumours #socialmediacommunication

4.1.11. Influence me!

Partner: GoEurope

Source: GoEurope

Objective: To reflect on the influencers’ methods to get more likes/followers, and

how these methods include fake elements sometimes.

Duration: 20-25 mins.

Number of participants: 10-25

Age: 15+

Difficulty level: average

Conditions/Format: Group activity

Material: smartphones, projector (big screen).

Preparation: Participants need to have smartphones, as well as access to the

internet. The big group (10-25 people) needs to be split in smaller groups.
Depending on the number of the big group, smaller groups can have between 3
to 5 members.

Description: Each group needs to choose a group member to become an

“influencer”, who appears on a social media post. Each group takes a picture of
that influencer and makes a post on a social media platform (Instagram,
Facebook, etc.). The objective is to get as much followers/likes as possible. But
each post needs to include a fake element (only one). It means, something that
is not true (e.g. location, filters to delete something, message, brand, etc.).
Once all groups have their posts ready, they share. In plenary, each participant
will have a vote. All participants will vote the posts and the one that gets more
likes/followers, wins.

Tips for Trainers:

● The trainer can reward the winner(s).
● Participants don’t need to make actual posts. They can just share the post
without publishing to see how the post would look like.

Questions for debriefing:

- What did you like about the winner’s post?
 - What are the fake elements of the post? Do you easily recognise them?
- Have you ever thought that influencers use these “tricks” to get more
likes/followers?
- Do you follow any influencer/celebrity who has used this type of “tricks”?
How do you know that?

Tags: #influencers #fakenews

4.1.12. Tell me what you did last weekend

Partner: YEPP EUROPE

Source: YEPP EUROPE

Objective: Detect fake information while listening to peers

Duration: 15-20 minutes

Number of participants: 10-20

Age: 10+

Difficulty level: easy

Format/Conditions: a room with chairs

Material: nothing is needed

Preparation: not needed

Description:
Put people in pairs and ask one person to be the storyteller and the other person
to be the listener. After the first round, they switch roles. The storyteller tells
his/her partner what he or she has done during the weekend (or during the last
holidays) by adding three fake information to the story. After the story is
over, the listener needs to detect what the three fake pieces of information
were. Participants can add obvious fake information (e.g. On Saturday, I was
riding my bike through the city naked all day) or very subtle fake information
(e.g. on Saturday, I woke up at 10.30 – when in reality it was 9.30).

Once everybody has been in the role of a storyteller and a listener, you can
discuss in the plenum what has been the experience of the young people, how
they detected the fake information and how difficult it was to detect subtle fake
information.

Tips for Trainers:

● If possible, put people in pairs who do not know each other that well, or
who don’t regularly spend the weekend together.

Questions for debriefing:

● You can also extend the discussion by asking why people would fake
information. What can be their motives?

Tags:#Detect fake news, #listening

4.1.13. K-W-L Charts

Partner: YEPP EUROPE

Source: Facing history and ourselves. Resource Library. Teaching Strategies – K-

W-L Charts https://www.facinghistory.org/resource-library/teaching-
strategies/k-w-l-charts

Objective:
K-W-L charts are graphic organizers that help students organize information
before, during, and after a learning session. They can be used to engage
students in a new topic, activate prior knowledge, share learning objectives, and
monitor participants’ learning.

Duration: 20 minutes

Number of participants: 10-20

Age: 12+

Difficulty level: Average

Format/Conditions: n.a.

Material: Pen and paper

Preparation: Prepare papers with the below chart

Description:
Step 1. Make K-W-L Charts
Pass out the handout with the chart below to the participants. Alternatively,
you can distribute a blank sheet of paper and ask students to create their
own chart.

Assess what you know about a particular topic before and after you have
engaged with it. Fill the columns below with what you Know about the topic,
what you Want to know, and what you’ve Learned.

What do you Know What do you Want to What did you Learn?
about the topic? know?

Step 2. Complete Column 1

Have participants respond to the first question in column 1: What do you
Know
about the topic of Fake News? Participants can do this individually or in small
groups. Often, trainers create a master list of all participants’ responses. One
question that frequently emerges for youth workers is how to address
misconceptions students share. Sometimes it is appropriate to correct false
information at this point in the process. Other times, you might want to leave
the misconceptions so that participants can correct them on their own as they
learn new material.

Step 3. Complete Column 2

Have participants respond to the question in column 2: What do you Want to
know about this topic? Some students may not know where to begin if they
don't have much background knowledge on the topic. Therefore, it can be
helpful to put the six interrogatives of journalism on the board as questions
(Who? What? Where? When? Why? How?). We suggest that participants’
responses and questions be used to direct the course of study. As
participants share what they want to learn, this step provides an opportunity
for youth workers to present what they hope students will learn in the
session.

Step 4. Complete Column 3 and Review Columns 1 and 2

Throughout the session, students can review their K-W-L charts by adding to
column 3: What did you learn? Some trainers can ask participants to add to
their charts at the end of each session, while others can ask participants to
add to their charts at the end of the week or the end of the series of
sessions. As participants record what they have learned, they can review the
questions in column 2, checking off any questions that they can now answer.
They can also add new questions. Participants should also review column 1 so
 they can identify any misconceptions they may have held before beginning
the unit.

Tips for Trainers: n.a.

Questions for debriefing:

● What did you learn?
● What is new?
● What was easy?
● What was difficult?

Tags: #KWL Chart #self-assessment

4.1.14. The motives behind Fake News

Partner: YEPP EUROPE

Source: YEPP EUROPE

Objective:
To learn about the motives behind fake news

Duration:
20-30 minutes

Number of participants:
10-20

Age:
12+

Difficulty level: average

Format/Conditions:
You need a series of examples of fake news, real ones or the produced ones of
the Fake Off project. You can print them out or have them on the computer.

Material:
If you work with computers, you need one computer per group of 3-4 young
people.

Preparation:
Prepare the Fake News you want to use during the exercise.

Description:
Put people in pairs or in groups of 3-4 young people give each group an example
of a fake news (printed out or on the computer)
Ask the small group to
- Detect what is fake about the news
- determine, if the information is completely invented and false or
partially
- List the possible motives of the authors to create this fake news
- Discuss these motives and if participants have come across similar
fake news or fake news with similar motives behind.
After discussion in pairs or small groups, get back into the plenum (big group).
Each small group shares through a short presentation the results of the exercise
and discusses the different findings in the plenum.

Tips for Trainers:

● Make sure that you chose fake news from different fields (politics, health,
sports, celebrities, etc.).
● Try to assist small groups during the process or help them to find more
motives which could be behind the fake news.

Questions for debriefing:

● Have you come across fake news like this?
● How can you find out that news is fake?
● What are the main topics in which there is fake news?
● What are the different media platforms mostly used for fake news?
● What are the main motives behind fake news?

Tags:
#Detect fake news, #motives

4.1.15. Detecting Fake News

Partner: YEPP EUROPE

Source: YEPP EUROPE

Objective:
To learn how to detect fake news as well as key signs of common fake news

Duration:
20-30 minutes
Number of participants:
10-20

Age:12+

Difficulty level: (easy - average - advanced)

Average

Format/Conditions:
You need a series of examples of fake news, real ones or the produced ones of
the FAKE OFF! project. You can print them out or have them on the computer.
You could also use news which are not fake and mix them with the fake ones.

Material:
If you work with computers, you need one computer per group of 2-4 young
people

Preparation:
Prepare the Fake News you want to use during the exercise.

Description:
Put people in pairs or in groups of 3-4 young people give each group an example
of a fake news or a real news (printed out or on the computer).
Ask each small group:
- Is the news fake or not?
- What are the signs which make you believe that it is fake? (title,
author, URL, etc.)
- How can you find out if it is true or false?

Tips for Trainers:

● What are the signs to detect the fake news and how can you find out?
○ The title of the article or video
○ The logo of the publisher
○ Does the source sound true?
○ Does the URL sound legitimate?
○ Does the news sound biased or one-sided?
○ Does it sound exaggerated or extreme?
○ Does the title or picture intend to provoke a strong reaction?
○ Check if it is also followed by other mainstream media
○ Check on fact-checking websites
● The trainer can have the participants present their analysis of the news on
a poster.
● Some groups need more time for debriefing - the coach should allow a
little extra time for this.
Questions for debriefing:
Apart from the above checklist on how to detect if an article, post or video is
fake, also discuss how difficult it often is to find out and that most of the fake
news is information with subtle things and details rather than obvious,
detectable by everyone signs.

Tags:
#Detectfakenews, #signsoffakenews

4.1.16. Emotions and Fake News

Partner: YEPP EUROPE

Source: YEPP EUROPE

Objective:
Learn how fake news often plays with emotions and how to be cautious with
news which tries to evoke strong emotions.

Duration:
20-30 minutes

Number of participants:
10-20

Age:
12+

Difficulty level: Average

Format/Conditions:
Room with chairs

Material:
None needed

Preparation:
Choose a series of News (fake and true) which evoke strong emotions such as
sadness, happiness, anger, jealousy, pity, etc.
You can use the examples which were created within the Fake Off project or
other examples. You can print them out or use them on the computer.

Description:
Put people into small groups of 2–4 people and each group gets one piece of
news (on paper or on the computer). Here are the steps:
- Look at the news and imagine you get it on your mobile phone or your PC
- How would you feel when looking at it /reading it (Focus exclusively on
your emotions)
- What does this emotion do to your body? (your heart beat, body
temperature, sweat, nervousness, etc.)
- What is your first reaction regarding this news? What do you want to do
(share, comment, ignore, etc.)?
- What if the news is fake? Would your emotion and reaction change if you
had a doubt about the news being fake?
- How can emotions influence our behaviour when being online?

After the small groups have discussed these questions, get back into the plenum
and ask people to share their experience.

Tips for Trainers:

● Don’t list all the questions at once, break the questions down into groups
of questions (orally or on the flip chart). Guide the groups through the
questions step by step.

Tags:
#Emotions, #reactionstofakenews

4.1.17. The way we (re)act online

Partner: YEPP EUROPE

Source: YEPP EUROPE

Objective:
Learn about the motives for which (young) people share content online.

Duration:
20-30 minutes

Number of participants:
10-20
Age:
12+

Difficulty level: Average

Format/Conditions:
A room with a projector

Material:
A projector

Preparation:
Prepare the room so there is a lot of space to move around. Divide the room in
two halves. In one half you create seven islands on the floor by sticking a paper
with the “Facebook Reactions” on each island: Like, Love, Haha, Wow, Sad,
Angry or IGNORE.
In the second half you create two islands with one paper with Comment and one
paper with Share.

Description:
You ask the group to stand in the room and look at the big screen.
You show one piece of news (fake news examples created within the Fake Off
project or other examples; they can also be real (true) news)
- First step: ask people to stand on one of the islands Like, Love, Haha,
Wow, Sad, Angry or IGNORE based on how they would react to this news.
- Second step: ask people (except those who stood on IGNORE) to stand on
Comment or Share, based on how they would react.
- Third step: Ask some of them about their motives, why they would share
this news and what they would comment
- Fourth step: announce if the news is real or fake.
- Fifth step: Show the next news on the screen and start form new.

Tips for Trainers:

● Ask people to move fast and don’t give them too much time to think.
There might be some peer pressure or fear to stand alone on an island,
therefore the trust in the group needs to be established and the pressure
taken away beforehand. Ask people to give an honest answer.
● Depending on the size of the group, 20 minutes may not be enough -
adjustments must be made by the trainer.
● You can also include the first and second steps (try all possible reactions)
to achieve a more dynamic appearance of the group.
● The trainer should allow enough time for the debriefing.

Questions for debriefing:

 ● What was your experience?
● What did you learn?
● What was surprising?
● What are some common motives behind reactions, especially sharing and
commenting?

Tags:
#onlinereactions, #emotions, #fake news

4.1.18. The way we (re)act online – Emoji Cards

Partner: YEPP EUROPE

Source: YEPP EUROPE

Objective:
Learn about how people react differently online and about their motives for
which they react and share content online.

Duration:
20-30 minutes

Number of participants:
10-20

Age:
12+

Difficulty level: Average

Format/Conditions:
A room with a projector

Material:
A projector and emoji cards

Preparation:
Prepare the room so that all people sit in a half circle in front of the big screen
Each of the participants received the following self-made emoji cards:
 Like Love Haha

Wow Sad Angry

IGNORE Comment Share

Description:
You ask the group to look at the big screen.
You show one piece of news (fake news examples created within the Fake Off
project or other examples; they can also be real (true) news)
- First step: ask people to show one of the following cards: Like, Love,
Haha, Wow, Sad, Angry or IGNORE based on how they would react to this
news.
- Second step: ask people (except those who stood on IGNORE) to show
one of the cards Comment or Share, based on how they would react.
- Third step: Ask some of them about their motives, why they would share
this news and what they would comment.
- Fourth step: announce if the news is real or fake.
- Fifth step: Show the next news on the screen and start form new.

Tips for Trainers:

● Ask people to move fast and don’t give them too much time to think.
● There might be some peer pressure or participants might be influenced by
peers in terms of what card they show. Therefore the trust in the group
needs to be established and the pressure taken away beforehand. Ask
people to give an honest answer.
 ● Also what you can do is ask people to think a couple of seconds, prepare
their card and “1-2-3” show the card at the same time. This way people
are not influenced by what card other people in the circle show.
● This exercise can also be done with smaller or larger groups. For this
purpose, the learning environment and time frame should be adapted.

Questions for debriefing:

● What was your experience?
● What did you learn?
● What was surprising?
● What are some common motives behind reactions, especially sharing and
commenting?

Tags:
#Online reactions, #emoji

4.1.19. 8Ps Puzzle

Partner: GoEurope

Source: GoEurope

Objective:To get to know the “8Ps”58, which are the forces (motives) behind the
fake news

Duration: 5 mins.

Number of participants: 10-16

Age: 16+

Difficulty level: easy

Format/Conditions: Group activity

Material: The cards with the name of the “P” (one per each) and the cards with
the definitions (one definition card corresponding to each “P”). In addition, the
FAKE OFF! General Didactic Concept, where you can find the information about
the 8Ps behind the fake news.

58
Wardle, C. (Feb 16, 2017), “Fake News. It’s Complicated”. First Draft
https://medium.com/1st-draft/fake-news-its-complicated-d0f773766c79
POOR JOURNALISM When there are mis- and disinformation
based on a lack of research or fact and
source checking

PARODY Often the headlines or content are

exaggerated and highly ironic aimed at
making fun of a person or an issue

PROVOCATION The information is designed to provoke

reactions from the audience

PASSION When the headlines, images and content

are very explicit and colourful, the content
might be driven by passion rather than
precise research

PARTISANSHIP When there is clear bias and prejudice

towards a cause or an issue

PROFIT News articles that go viral on social media

can draw significant advertising revenue
when users click on the original site

POLITICAL MOTIVES Political advertising has become a

sophisticated and targeted industry,
drawing on enormous pools of personal
data on Facebook and Google. This means
that campaigns create personalised ads for
individuals

PROPAGANDA Many state-controlled news providers have

spent resources on building a strong web
presence where the control or nation of
origin is masked, allowing them to flex soft
power both within and without their
countries

Preparation: At least, the trainers should have read the part “Why is such
content created?” of the FAKE OFF General Didactic Concept.

Each square of the above table needs to be cut. Then, the squares with the “Ps”
and the definitions need to be spread randomly on a table, where the small
group makes the puzzle. It is necessary to do so in each table where each small
group is. On the other hand, you need to have a puzzle made correctly, but
covered (one can see it). Concerning the participants, the main group is divided
into smaller groups (max. 4 people in each group).

Description: The groups approaches to the place where the correct puzzle, but
covered, is. In that moment, the puzzle is uncovered, and groups will have 15
seconds to read what it is. Participants cannot take notes!

Then, they will come back to their corners and make the puzzle by matching the
“P” with the correct definition. They will have 30 seconds to do so. The team that
matches more “Ps” with their correct answer wins!

After the competition, they can all have 2-3 minutes to read the “8Ps” and their
correct definitions, so they can get introduced to them.

Tips for Trainers:

● The trainer can explain more the types of mis-/disinformation more in
detail (info at the FAKE OFF General Didactic Concept).
● More time could be added once the puzzle has been created, so that it is
possible to encourage more discussions about the concepts of the puzzle.

Questions for debriefing: --

Tags: #fakenews

4.1.20. What is what? Matching mis- and disinformation

Partner: GoEurope

Source: GoEurope

Objective: To introduce the different types of mis- and disinformation

Duration: 5 mins.

Number of participants: 10-16

Age: 13+

Difficulty level: easy

Note: it is an easier version of the “8Ps Puzzle!” due to the topic addressed; so
the same activity can be done with younger people
Format/Conditions: Group activity

Material: The cards with the names of the different types of mis-/disinformation,
and the cards with the definitions (one definition card corresponding to each
type). In addition, the FAKE OFF General Didactic Concept, where you can find
the information about the types of mis- and disinformation.

SATIRE OR PARODY The intention is not to harm, but it has

the potential to mislead or fool

FALSE CONNECTION Headlines, visuals or captions do not

support the content

MISLEADING CONTENT Misleading use of information in order

to frame a person or certain topic

FALSE CONTEXT Real information is shared with false

contextual information

IMPERSONATION Real sources are fabricated and faked

MANIPULATED INFORMATION Authentic information and images are

intentionally manipulated in order to
mislead

FABRICATED INFORMATION Completely false information

intentionally created to mislead and
harm

Preparation: At least, the trainers should have read the part “Mis- and
disinformation: the different types” of the FAKE OFF General Didactic Concept.

Each square of the above table needs to be cut. Then, the squares with the
types of mis-/disinformation and the definitions need to be spread randomly on
a table, where the small group makes the match. It is necessary to do so in each
table where each small group is. Regarding the participants, the main group is
divided into smaller groups (max. 4 people in each group).
Description: Each group will have 2 minutes to match the type of mis-
/disinformation with the correct definitions. After 2 minutes, they check if the
correct matches. The team that matches more types of mis-/disinformation with
their correct answer wins!

Tips for Trainers:

● The minutes they have to match the types of mis-/disinformation with the
definitions can vary (shorter or longer) depending on the participants’
needs. In addition, the trainer can explain more the types of mis-
/disinformation more in detail (info at the FAKE OFF General Didactic
Concept).
● The time required for the activity depends on the level of difficulty.
● The trainer must identify the most competitive and least competitive
participants and make sure that the competitive ones do not get the upper
hand over the game and determine it, while the less competitive ones are
pushed aside.

Questions for debriefing: --

Tags: #fakenews

4.1.21. Spotlighting fake news: element by element

Partner: GoEurope

Source: GoEurope

Objective: To strengthen the knowledge about the key elements to spot fake
news

Duration: 20-25 mins.

Number of participants: 8-12

Age: 16+

Difficulty level: advanced

Format/Conditions: Individual activity, pairs exercise or group activity

Material: Each participant needs to fill out the following template.

KEY ELEMENT TO SPOT EXAMPLE

FAKE NEWS

The URL or the source

doesn’t sound
legitimate

The section “About us”

doesn’t seem very clear
and trustful

The author doesn’t

seem very reliable
(Does it exist? What did
he/she write before…?)

The content seems

biased or exaggerated

The true story is

discovered

Preparation: At the beginning, the trainer can ask “Have you ever heard about
fake stories on internet”. If they say yes, then participants can be more ready
for the activity. In addition, the trainer must read the section “How to spot fake
news?” of the FAKE OFF General Didactic Concept. Finally, the template below
can be shared electronically, so a good internet connection is needed.

The trainer needs to decide if the activity will be done by participants

individually, in pairs or in groups. Once it is decided, proceed accordingly.
Moreover, he/she needs to decide if the above template is shared physically or
electronically.
Description: Participants will dive in the internet! First, they will get the template
in blank (physically or electronically). Second, they need to recall stories about
fake facts or events that they have heard about. Third, they need to look for it
on the internet (e.g. through Google) and go to the original source (if possible).
If they want, they can try to explore new fake stories. It is up to them! Fourth,
they need to check the different elements to spot fake news, and they need to
fill the template out by highlighting the elements that make such
website/post/news fake. Participants will have 15 minutes to do so (they can do
it individually, in pairs or in small groups -3 people maximum).

After that, all participants (the whole group) can gather together and discuss
about their findings (you can use the “Questions for debriefing”).

Tips for Trainers:

● The above template can be shared electronically, so participants can
directly fill it out with online examples. Furthermore, keep in mind that
they can use the same example for different elements, or they need to
have one per element. It is something the trainer decides!

Questions for debriefing:

- Was it hard to find examples?
- What was the hardest element to spot?
- Did you need help to complete the task? If so, what did you do? What
websites did you choose? Did it work?

Tags: #fakenews #fakenewsexamples

4.1.22. Run for the correct answer!

Partner: GoEurope

Source: GoEurope

Objective: To reflect on the differences between real and fake news, as well as
how easily (or not) we can spot them

Duration: 10-15 mins.

Number of participants: 10-30

Age: 13+
Difficulty level: easy

Format/Conditions: Group activity

Material: A projector or a big screen where you can show examples of real and
fake news. Moreover, slides with examples of real and fake news (around 20 in
total, approx.). If needed, the fake news can be taken from the “Examples of
Fake News” document in the General Didactic Concept of the FAKE OFF! project.

Preparation: It is necessary to have a big space to let participants run from one
side to the other. On one side of the room, you put a big banner that says
“REAL”. On the other side, you put another banner saying “FAKE”.

Description: The trainer places him/herself in the center of the room. Ask all
participants to come to the center too. Then, a mix between real and fake news
will be appearing on the big screen (one by one). Once a slide is shown,
participants need to run to the corner they think is correct (real or fake). It
means they need to guess if what appears is real or fake. They will do so with all
the slides. The participant who guesses correctly more slides, wins!

Afterwards, the trainer can ask questions to the group to have a short debriefing
about the activity (check the suggested questions below).

Tips for Trainers:

● Choose fake news that look like real news, so the game can become more
surprising and interesting.

Questions for debriefing:

- What is hard about differentiating the real and the fake ones?
- What did you look at to guess?

Tags: #fakenews

4.1.23. Selfie

Partner: Jonathan Cooperativa Sociale

Source: Jonathan Cooperativa Sociale

Objective:
- increase awareness about the use of images (both personal and not personal)
for different purposes;
- increase awareness about yourself and other people's perception in a range of
time and space
-increases the awareness that self images online are often fake or at least
manipulated.

Duration: 45 min at the beginning and 45 min at the end

Number of participants: about 25

Age: 12+

Difficulty level: easy

Format/Conditions: Group activity. No special condition required

Material: mobile phone, pc, projector or interactive whiteboard

Preparation: nothing particular

Description:
At the beginning of the whole session participants have 10-15 minutes to take a
selfie that represents them ‘here and now’, give a title to the selfie and send
them to the facilitator’s device (phone/pc, email, etc.). Each selfie will be shown
on the screen and the owner will present it and answer the question ‘What do I
want to communicate with this picture?’.

At the end of the session, the activity will be repeated. This time, each
participant is asked to take a selfie that represents themselves and think about
‘What do I want to communicate?’. To guide them, facilitators can give the input
about taking selfies that represent them, their real selves with their values, and
intentions behind taking a selfie and posting it on social media.

Tips for Trainers:

● This activity can be used as a starter and closure of a whole training block
on values, images, ethics or communication. Depending on each
participant’s characteristics (fragile, insecure, fewer opportunities, etc.)
the activity can be simplified to avoid negative impact or an emotional
‘breakdown’.
● It will work better after team-building activities.

Questions for debriefing:

● What do I want to communicate with this picture?
● Do I feel myself changed?
● Do I feel my ‘online’-self changed?
● Do I really look at the pictures and their purpose?
 ● Do I really stop and take time to find the purpose behind it?

Tags: #selfie #images #perception

4.1.24. Accordion communication

Partner: Jonathan Cooperativa Sociale

Source: Jonathan Cooperativa Sociale

Objective:
- show the dynamics of communication, in particular people’s different
interpretation of words and images and vice-versa;
- make participants reflect on the potential misunderstandings and the
feelings/emotions connected to expectations.

Duration: 30 min

Number of participants: 25/30

Age: 10+

Difficulty level: easy

Format/Conditions: small group activity; possibility to stand or sit in circle

Material: large strips of papers, colored pens

Preparation: strips of paper with folding signs; the number of strips needs to be
equal to the number of participants

Description: participants are divided into groups of 6/8 and they are in a circle.
Each participant receives a long and narrow sheet of paper with a word written
on the top (i.e. happiness, news, images). Each participant simultaneously
draws an image or a symbol of this word, folds his/her sheet to hide the word
and passes it on to the next participant clockwise; now the next person sees the
image, hides it by folding and writes down in words what she/he saw. The
process in the circle is continued until each sheet has passed all participants in
the circle and arrived back to its ‘owner’.
The sheets can be passed from participant to participant with or without a
specific time frame, e.g. switch every 10 seconds.

Tips for Trainers:

 ● It is important that participants follow the instructions and only see what
the participant before him/her has drawn or written down on paper.
● The first word given can be different from participant to participant and
can be selected among the fake news topic area lexicon.

Questions for debriefing:

● How was the development of your sheet?
● Did you get a totally different object?
● Did you expect such evolution?
● How many different representations were shown on your paper?
● How many ‘misunderstandings’ in the interpretation?

Tags: #icebreakers #communication #wordsandimages

4.1.25. Touchscreen

Partner: Jonathan Cooperativa Sociale

Source: Jonathan Cooperativa Sociale

Objective:
- increase awareness on the complexity of communication,
- increase awareness on ‘own-subjective’ and ‘own-objective’ perceptions (how
you see yourself and how others see you),

Duration: 30 min

Number of participants: 20/30

Age: 10+

Difficulty level: easy

Format/Conditions: small group activity

Material: different coloured pencils, paper, images

Preparation: as many images (simple ones, like geometric shapes or stylized

objects) as group members. Each image has a number.

Description: Split participants in groups of 5/6 or 9/10 people and arrange them
in lines (equal number of members per line), sitting on chairs or on a long
bench. The last person of each line goes to the facilitator/conductor that shows
them the same pictures and after having 5 minutes to memorize it, they go back
to their seat/place and draw the image on the back of the team mate he/she has
in front (like in a touch screen). This one will do the same to the team mate in
front and so on, till arriving to the person ahead of the line that will have a paper
and a coloured pencils to draw the message he/she received on his/her back.
The drawings will be collected and numbered as the original by the facilitator.
Then, people that made the drawing on the paper go to see a new picture, and
sit at the end of the line to start a new ‘touch’ communication process. The task
is repeated until every participant has made the drawing on the paper.
Once everybody has had the chance to make a drawing, the drawings will be
confronted with the originals to check the process in terms of the results and
feelings.

Tips for Trainers:

● This activity is really good as an icebreaker and team building activity.

Questions for debriefing:

● Is the result what you expected?
● How did you feel?
● Do you think that also in online communication there are sometimes
difficulties?
● Do you think that this possibility of information gap can also arise in other
one-way communication?

Tags: #icebreaker #communication #perception

4.1.26. Did you know this?

Partner: Jonathan Cooperativa Sociale

Source: Jonathan Cooperativa Sociale

Objective:
- increase awareness on opportunities and limits in different ways of
communication,
- increase awareness on how information on people or facts shared online
can be different with respect to information shared ‘vis-a-vis’,

Duration: 30 minutes

Number of participants: 10-30

Age: 11 +

Difficulty level: easy

Format/Conditions: group activity

Material: participants’ mobile phone and data or Wi-fi connection

Preparation: none, but if participants do know each other, they should set their
chat profile image as invisible for the whole duration of the activity. Moreover, if
they do not know each other, the youth workers can put all their mobile phones
in a basket and make them pick one at random.

Description:
Participants are involved in 2 different ways of communication, online (via
WhatsApp or the chat they use daily) and offline (face to face). They are split in
two groups and they work in couples, but they can sit in a big circle. The goal of
the game for them is to know/discover as much as possible of his/her mate
(name, look, family, passions, talents, etc.). They are also invited to make
questions about uncomfortable truths (i.e. have you ever done something...?
Have you ever …? Your worst failure?) to make the game more interesting.

Phase 1: in couples they interact just via WhatsApp (or another social chat they
daily use) for 5 minutes
Phase 2: in couples, they follow interacting face to face
Phase 3: with a change in the couple, they start again but interacting directly
face to face

Tips for Trainers:

● The exercise can be done as very first contact making game without
knowledge on Fake News topic as an icebreaker.

Questions for debriefing:

● How did you feel talking online?
● How did you feel talking offline?
● Do you think there are differences between online and ‘vis-a-vis’
communication?
● What are the opportunities/easy aspects and limits in both ways?
● Do you think these opportunities and these limits also apply when you
read the news, posts, etc?

Tags: #icebreaker #communication #vis-a-vis #chat #face2face

4.1.27. Before and after the fact

Partner: Jonathan Cooperativa Sociale

Source: Jonathan Cooperativa Sociale

Objective:
- increase awareness on the difference between context, the complexity of
facts and piece of news;
- increase motivation on sharing opinions;

Duration: 1 hour

Number of participants: 25

Age:12+

Difficulty level: easy

Format/Conditions: group activity / large space, no other special requirement

Material: images

Preparation: several images of situations of persons where something is

happening that could lead to different things

Description:
Phase 1: Participants are split into groups of 6/8 people each (or less). They are
asked to choose an image and each group has about 30 minutes to think about
the possible evolution of the situation represented in the picture. Each member
of the group has a role corresponding to a person/object/animal of the image.

Phase 2 is about representing the image in three ways: what the group imagined
happened before the picture was taken (‘past’), what is actually happening in the
picture they chose (‘present’) and what they imagine happened after the picture
was taken (‘future’). Each group recreates the original picture (the ‘present’)
trying to represent it as closely as possible (same position, same facial
expressions, etc.). Then the same group must recreate the ‘past’ and ‘future’
pictures they imagined. To engage the other participants, the public can clap
their hands all together and after 10 claps the group represents the ‘past’. After
the ‘past’ has been represented, the public claps again 10 times and the group
creates the ‘future’ representation.

Tips for Trainers:

 ● Before the activities it can be useful to carry out some expressive
activities with the group (like moving in the space, interpret a feeling, an
emotion, etc).
● The exercise can be used as a starter/icebreaker activity.

Questions for debriefing:

● How did you feel during this activity?
● Did you interpret the image in the same way? Why?
● Did you face difficulties in creating and thinking of the evolution of the
situations?
● Is there someone that did not feel satisfied about what has been ‘created’
as a beginning or final situation?
● Have you ever interpreted real life facts in the wrong way and fallen in
misunderstanding?
● Do you think that what you see in the pictures and videos posted and
online news always shows you a complete frame of a fact?

Tags: #icebreaker #picture #situation #fact

4.1.28. News thunder

Partner: Jonathan Cooperativa Sociale

Source: Jonathan Cooperativa Sociale

Objective:
- strengthen capacity of observing, catching and analyzing different
elements in a piece of information;
- motivate participants to share opinions, find other sources of knowledge
and discuss with peers or other people about news and information

Duration: 2h
Number of participants: about 25 people

Age: 11 +

Difficulty level: easy

Format/Conditions: small group activity / a room or open space with possibility

to hang up posters

Material: posters, colours or markers, 4 articles (2 true and 2 fake)

Preparation: 2 true articles and 2 fake news

Description:
Phase 1
Participants are divided into groups of 5/6, they receive different articles, some
of them are true and some fake but credible. Each group has the same articles.
In groups, participants read and analyse them and state which one is true or
false. They write on a poster the title of the article, if it is true or false...

Phase 2
After that, each group hangs up the posters so that everyone can see them and
look at the other groups’ posters to check what they wrote and their reasons,
collecting in a paper questions about the reasons and criteria used by the other
groups to find true and false ones.

Finally the facilitator informs which ones are true and which ones are false.
Participants check their resolutions, share thoughts, answer questions from the
other groups and follow the debriefing.

Tips for Trainers:

● The exercise can be done as a very first exercise without knowledge on
the Fake News topic and to introduce more specific and theoretical
content.
● During the checking moment throughout the posters, it could be
interesting to have one representative per group to explain or answer
questions about the choice of declaring the articles as true or false and
the reasons behind those choices. This would reduce the need to adapt
the debriefing moment.
● The activity can be carried out also outdoors.

Questions for debriefing:

● Was it easy to identify true and fake news?
● What did you observe in the articles?
● What did you focus on?
● Why did you think it was true/false? (In case of a wrong match for ”true
or false”)
● What tricked you more? Did you learn some new strategies from your
peers/other participants to analyse news better?

Tags: #fakenews #article #identify

4.1.29. Are you online?

Partner: Jonathan Cooperativa Sociale

Source: Jonathan Cooperativa Sociale

Objective:
- increase awareness on opportunities and limits in different ways of
communication,
- increase awareness on how information about people or facts shared
online can be different from information shared personally, sometimes
keeping you in a comfort zone and sometimes giving you an
uncomfortable ‘position’.

Duration: 30 minutes

Number of participants: 1 or 2 classes (20 – 40)

Age: 11 +

Difficulty level: easy

Format/Conditions: outdoor or indoor

Material: participants’ mobile phones

Preparation: if participants do not know each other, they should set their chat
profile and profile image as invisible for the whole duration of the activity.

Description:
Participants are involved in two different ways of communication, on-line (via
Whatsapp or the chat they use daily) and off-line (‘vis-a-vis’). They are split in 2
groups and they work in pairs but they can sit in a big circle. The objective is to
get to know as many opinions as possible and discuss given topics, articles or
facts.

Phase 1: in pairs they interact just via Whatsapp (or another social chat they
daily use) for 5 minutes;
Phase 2.1: in pairs, they switch to personal interaction
Phase 2.2: with a change in the pair, they start again but only with personal
interaction.

Tips for Trainers:

● The exercise can be done as very first activity without knowledge on the
topic Fake News and to introduce more specific and theoretical content.
Questions for debriefing:
● How did you feel when talking online?
● How did you feel when talking offline?
● Do you think there are differences between talking online and personally?
● What are the opportunities/easy aspects and limits in both in speaking
online and offline?
● Do you think these opportunities and these limits apply also when you
read the news, posts, etc?

Tags: #icebreaker #communication #chat

4.1.30. Fake news about something around me

Partner: Jonathan Cooperativa Sociale

Source: Jonathan Cooperativa Sociale

Objective:
- Develop empathy and be more aware about our own emotions
- Set and develop new behaviours according to emotions
- Increase awareness on the fact that what we do online (as offline) has
consequences and has an impact on the others
- Find the right strategies to surf emotions and to act accordingly to these
emotions

Duration: 1,5-2 hours

Number of participants: about 25

Age: 14+

Difficulty level: average to advanced

Format/Conditions: small group activity / a big space to make groups exhibit

Material: different initial situations derived from true news stories, preferably
simple articles from local newspapers or even fake facts.

Preparation: initial situations taken from true stories or fake facts

Description:
Participants will be involved in activities based on the body’s expressive art.
They will be divided into groups of 5/6, and an initial situation will be given to
each group (story, newspaper article, image, video..).
Each group has to find a possible ending to its story and prepare a short play
(verbal or non verbal) in which the evolution is shown.
The other participants form the public. Once all groups have acted, a discussion
will follow, and then the debriefing.

Tips for Trainers:

● The exercise can be done as a very first exercise without knowledge of the
Fake News topic and to introduce more specific and theoretical contents.
● Before this activity, it may be useful to suggest an icebreaker to use and
train body movements and expressions (like walking around the room and
showing specific emotional states or body conditions etc.).
● The trainer can also turn this exercise into a half-day session so that
participants can develop a more detailed story.
● The trainer must be aware that not all participants like to present
themselves.

Questions for debriefing

● How did you feel in these situations?
● Was it easy to find a solution?
● What were the main challenges of the exercise to complete it to an end?
● In these situations, how do you think you would have reacted?
● Are there similar situations in social media?
● How do you behave online in these situations?
● Do you think there are differences between fake news about peers like
yourselves and fake news about celebrities? Why?

Tags: #fact #emotions #situations

4.1.31. Youtuber for a day

Partner: Jonathan Cooperativa Sociale

Source: Jonathan Cooperativa Sociale

Objective:
- develop critical thinking with respect to what young people see and listen
from important public people, influencers, celebrities, etc.
- make young people aware about the long-lasting memories and impact of
the content published on the web (“the internet never forgets”)
 - increase awareness on the interest behind publishing specific contents
regarding some people or specific entities that often distort reality

Duration: 2 h

Number of participants: 20/25

Age: 11 +

Difficulty level: average to advanced

Format/Conditions: small group activity / availability of spaces outside if

necessary

Material: mobile phones, paper, pens, colours, and anything interesting for the
video idea

Preparation: -

Description:
Initially participants are invited in a discussion about who they follow or know on
the internet and share opinions and points of view in a big group. After that they
split in groups of 3-4 people to become “YouTubers”: they will be asked to make
a video to be published on the net on a topic that for them is really important
and that is important for a larger audience online too. They must do their best
so that the video is watched, liked and shared.
Once they make the videos, they will be shown to the whole group and followed
by a group discussion.

Tips for Trainers:

● Depending on the group size and their knowledge of video making with
their smartphones, some support may be needed, and the duration may
change.
● When each group shows their video, evaluation can be made by each
participant: Would they like this? Would they share this?
● Could be interesting to create a video as a group even about the topic of
fake news.

Questions for debriefing:

● How did you feel during video making?
● How was it for the main actors or people involved? Was it easy?
● Why did you choose that topic and why did you choose to make a video
like this? Did you exaggerate in saying, showing or doing something? How
much?
● How much did you distort your image or the content?
 ● And what about what you see on the internet: are things distorted?
Exaggerated? Can you give any examples?
● What are the effects on people that view distorted or exaggerated
content?

Tags: #YouTuber #influencer #webcontent

4.1.32. What’s wrong?

Partner: Jonathan Cooperativa Sociale

Source: Jonathan Cooperativa Sociale

Objective:
- Develop critical thinking of the content people see and read on the net
and on social media;
- Become more critical with respect to what we and others post, share,
‘like’, etc.;
- Become more aware about the impact of our online activities on other
people.

Duration: 1h

Number of participants: about 25 people

Age: 11+

Difficulty level: easy

Format/Conditions: group activity

Material: mobile phones or pc; interactive whiteboard or video projector; paper

and pens if needed

Preparation:-

Description:
Participants are asked to check on their social networks what, in their own
opinion, among comments, posts and sharings needs to be avoided, not
shared/liked, or even not posted. If they want, they can take notes on their
findings.
Images/posts/news/videos selected by participants are projected and then
discussed in a big group.
Each participant may say what he/she found and why in his/her opinion those
posts, articles, images, videos, etc. should not be posted, shared and/or liked.

Tips for Trainers:

● The activity can be used for the very first exercise on the topic of media
and communication literacy.
● This activity can be adapted for a step 3 of the GDC. Participants can be
asked to reflect on these questions in a deeper way, and especially to
focus on what would be their online reaction in finding that kind of
content, posts, etc.

Questions for debriefing

● What is the content about?
● What is shown/written?
● What bothers or impresses you the most?
● Why should it not be posted/shared or liked? (i.e. is it a fake? Is it
biased?).
● In your opinion, what do other people think while reading/watching it?
● From 1 to 10, what do you think is the impact of this content on people's
opinion?
● What do you think a good reaction could be?

Tags: #onlinecontent #onlinebehaviour #emotions

4.1.33. Chinese Whispers

Partner: LOGO
Source: LOGO

Objective: To understand how easy it is to get a wrong message in just a few

steps of forwarding.

Duration: 30 minutes

Number of participants: Groups of 6-8

Age: no age restriction

Difficulty level: easy

Conditions/Format: no special conditions required

Material: nothing

Preparation: The group should be divided into smaller groups of 6-8 people, but
also one long chain is possible.

Description: Classic game of chinese whispers. One person gets a word or a

phrase and has to whisper it in the ear of the next person. No questioning
allowed, just saying the word/phrase once. The last person in the chain has to
name the word/phrase out loud. Is it different from the initial word/phrase?

Tips for Trainers:

● Depending on the age, the word/phrase can be difficult and longer or
short and easy. Also try nonsensical phrases, that make it more difficult to
‘autocomplete’, if people don’t understand the whole phrase.

Questions for debriefing:

- If the word/phrase changed: where did it change? Try to figure out the
different steps of alteration.
- Why did it change? Did some people hear it wrong or did they fill in words,
they thought should be there?

4.1.34. From a detail

Partner: Jonathan Cooperativa Sociale

Source: Jonathan Cooperativa Sociale

Objective:
- to raise awareness of people’s different perceptions;
- increase awareness on fake news construction and misinformation via
image manipulation;
- increase knowledge and reflection on the link between visual language
and written text;
- enhance the capacity on the process of deconstructing stereotypes,
prejudices, etc.;

Duration: 1,5/2 h

Number of participants: max about 25

Age: 14+
Difficulty level: average to advanced

Format/Conditions: small group activity

Material: pens, paper, images (big format or poster is advised)

Preparation: select adequate images from which some specific spot/part can be
taken (see description)

Description: Participants form small groups, and each group receives an image.
That image is in reality a part/a cut out of a bigger one, taken out of the context
(hidden to participants obviously). The image should be widely in contrast with
respect to the original ‘global’ image, it should give a total opposite perception
with respect to the original bigger one.
Participants are asked to create a story around this piece of image answering
questions like: Who are the people in the picture? How old are they? What do
they look like? Where are they from? Why are they there? What are they doing?
What are their intentions?
From the story they can create a piece of news (as a story, image, …). Once the
story and news are created, each group presents it and after that the real,
general image can be shown.

Tips for Trainers:

● For a stronger understanding of the difference between the cut-out image
with a story and the original image, it can be useful to project them on a
big screen.

Questions for debriefing:

● Was it hard to create a story around a piece of image?
● How do you feel in discovering the real image?
● What do you think about the difference?
● Do you think that this trick is something common in social media or not?
● Can you give/show an example?

Tags: #images #stories #content #imagemanipulation

4.1.35. Chinese Drawings

Partner: LOGO
Source: LOGO
Objective: Getting to know what different focuses people have when they have
to describe the same situation.

Duration: 30-45 minutes

Number of participants: teams of 5

Age: 12+

Difficulty level: easy

Format/Conditions: no special conditions required

Material: one flip chart paper with pre-drawn drawings (4 different ones), 1
piece of flip chart paper for each team, coloured pencils.

Preparation: The trainer has to prepare a flip chart paper with four drawings,
quite detailed and colourful would be best (not visible to the group). There need
to be pencils, flip chart paper and a space for the teams to draw.

Description: The teams of 5 choose one ‘leader’. All the leaders come to the
trainer who shows them pre-drawn drawings. They have a set amount of time to
study the pictures (you can give them from about 5 minutes up to 10). They are
not allowed to take notes.
After this time they go back to their teams and tell them what they saw. They
again have a set amount of time (10 to 15 minutes) to tell them about the four
drawings. The four other people have to recreate them as exactly as possible. If
you want to make it harder, you can state the rule, that they are not allowed to
ask the leader about details. After the time is over, the teams present their
drawing to the other groups and the drawings get compared to the original
drawings.

Tips for Trainers:

● Depending on the age of the participants, you can choose more detailed
pictures and different colours. Also, the time restrictions influence the
outcome. Asking back or not can also be implemented for younger groups.
● Depending on how detailed the participants want to design the drawings,
this exercise can also be lengthened.

Questions for debriefing:

- How do the drawings differ from the originals?
- How do the drawings within the teams differ?
- What details were important for the teams, what did they forget?

Tags: #images #stories #content #drawing #fakenews #perception

4.1.36. The unreliable news reporter

Partner: LOGO
Source: LOGO

Objective: To show how quickly information changes when being forwarded

among people

Duration: 30 minutes

Number of participants: 3-5 ‘really unprofessional news reporters’, the rest of

the group is the audience.

Age: 14+

Difficulty level: average

Format/Conditions: no special requirements

Material: A prepared ‘news story’.

Preparation: Take a news story or write one yourself. Every member of the
audience should have a copy of it, the trainer should also keep one.

Description: 3-5 members of the group volunteer as “news reporters”. Number

one stays in the room, the others leave the room for a few minutes. You read
the story to the first reporter. S/he should remember as much as s/he can
without taking notes. After this reporter number two comes in and number one
tells number two the story. The audience takes notes, which part of the story
gets changed or left out. This continues until the last reporter. The last reporter
tells the story to the audience.

Tips for Trainers:

● If the reporters want to and the time allows it, the story can be told more
than once so that it is easier to remember for the next reporter.

Questions for debriefing:

- What changed among the “reporters”?
- Why did it change?
- Is there anything that got added to the stories?
Tags: #fakenews #stories #change #content #information

4.1.37. FAKE NEWS Bingo

Partner: LOGO
Source: https://www.stopfake.org/en/stopfake-bingo-game/

Objective: to know where one can find Fake News and how they look like

Duration: 20 minutes

Number of participants: no restrictions

Age: 14+

Difficulty level: average

Format/Conditions: Participants should have an active social media account

(Facebook at best, YouTube is fine too).

Material: A device to access the internet, Wi-Fi, printed out Bingo-sheets.

Preparation: Print Bingo sheets with different indicators for Fake News (e.g.
specific words used by fake news outlets, satire, harmed animals, clickbait, no
source given, stats that are not proven anywhere, etc.).

Description: Participants can either play alone or in teams. They have to find a
news site, news feed, etc. that fulfills all the requirements on their Bingo sheet.
If they find one, they shout BINGO!

Tips for Trainers:

● The trainer can limit it to one specific homepage, open up to find one
story for each phrase on the Bingo sheet.
● The trainer needs to provide Wi-Fi for the participants and some devices,
because maybe not every participant has their own devices with them.
● The trainer must be aware that some participants may finish much earlier
than others. The trainer can tell those who have finished earlier to find
more pages.

Questions for debriefing:

- What did you find out?
- Where does the news come from?
 - Which type of misinformation did you find? (satire, misleading content,
false connection, …)

Tags: #fakenews #bingo #game #content #detecting

4.1.38. Real or Fake?

Partner: LOGO
Source: https://www.thoughtco.com/can-you-spot-the-hoaxes-4099583

Objective: Quick quiz to find out how good everyone is at detecting fake
pictures.

Duration: 10-15 minutes

Number of participants: should not be more than 20 people

Age: 14+

Difficulty level: easy

Format/Conditions: no special requirements

Material: either an existing webquiz or make one yourself, possibility to show it

either via projector or on a big screen, Internet.

Preparation: Set up a computer with a screen or projector.

Description: There are several quizzes online, test your ability to decide if
something is real or fake. The whole group should agree on an answer - how
they decide is also part of the exercise.

Tips for Trainers:

● The trainer could insert the pictures in an online quiz tool (such as e.g.
Kahoot) and play it as single players or teams with points and rankings.
● The trainer should check the technological conditions in advance, whether
beamers etc. are available.
● In some educational institutions the technological conditions are not the
best. In this case it makes sense to provide the link to the participants
and they can view the pictures themselves on their own technological
devices.

Questions for debriefing:

 - Why did you think it is true/fake?
- What indicators made it true/fake for you?

Tags: #fakenews #quiz #realorfake #game

4.1.39. What can we learn from satire?

Partner: LOGO
Source: LOGO

Objective: At which point do satire news break from believable to unbelievable?

Duration: 15-45 minutes

Number of participants: should not be more than 20 people

Age: 14+

Difficulty level: average

Format/Conditions: Access to the internet.

Material: Articles from satire web pages (The Onion, Tagespresse, Postillon, The
Hard Times).

Preparation: Either print news stories or provide the participants with access to
the stories on the internet.

Description: The participants should read the satire articles and mark the things
where they think the articles tip from believable to unbelievable. How could you
change it, so that it becomes (more) believable?

Tips for Trainers:

● This can also be done vice versa where you take a real article and change
it into a satire one by e.g. exaggerating, strange claims, false connections,
etc.

Questions for debriefing:

● What makes a satire article funny?
● Where would you draw the line?
● What makes it believable/unbelievable?

Tags: #fakenews #satire #articles #content

4.1.40. Know your bias!

Partner: LOGO
Source: https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/takeatest.html

Objective: to know what my biases on different topics are

Duration: 15 minutes per test

Number of participants: not specified

Age: 14+ (better 16+)

Difficulty level: average

Format/Conditions: Access to the Internet.

Material: Devices to access the Internet

Preparation: Every participant should have its own device, the tests are quite
personal.

Description: The participants can check their biases towards different topics
(race, gender, religion, sexual orientation, etc.). The tests take about 15
minutes each. The goal is to spread awareness about biases in general and help
the participants discover their biases.

Tips for Trainers:

● If participants should make more tests, they can create a profile and have
the possibility of continuing from previous results.

Questions for debriefing:

● Is the result congruent with your opinion about your bias?
● Was there a surprising outcome?

Tags: #fakenews #bias #test #psychology

4.1.41. Professions

Partner: LOGO
Source: LOGO
Objective: Uncover bias we have towards people who work in different
professions

Duration: 10 - 30 minutes

Number of participants: can be done solo and also in groups

Age: no age restriction

Difficulty level: easy

Conditions/Format: no special conditions required

Material: pens, paper

Preparation: no preparation needed

Description: Talk to the young people about bias. Explain that we all are biased
in some way. In simple terms, bias is something that everyone has. It’s a kind
of prejudice against a person or group of people that is often not based on
facts but on a general feeling. This is often transported through education or
upbringing and can concern gender, nationality, religion, color of skin, sexual
orientation, but also less serious topics such as preference of specific sports
teams. An example of bias is how we view certain professions.

Ask young people to draw people working in different professions. The drawings
do not have to be well drawn but should go into details, like hair, clothing, age,
gender, etc.

Tips for Trainers:

● The trainer should try to use gender neutral words for people in
professions to not influence them: in some languages this might be more
difficult than in others.
● Some interesting professions might be: doctor, secretary, hairdresser,
sports person, model, politician, harvest helper, judge/lawyer. If some do
not want to show their drawings, ask them to describe their pictures in
detail.
● For older participants it is possible to include deeper and more complex
debriefing questions.

Questions for debriefing:

- How do the people look?
- Are there differences between the drawings of the kids?
 - If you worked in groups: were there discussions about some professions?
If so: what about exactly?
- Where did you pull your pictures from? Did you imagine a certain person
or just people in these jobs in general?
- How many female politicians / male models / old sports people / young
doctors are there?

Tags: #bias #medialiteracy #awareness #fakenews

4.1.42. What a picture! (1)

Partner: Jonathan Cooperativa Sociale

Source: Jonathan Cooperativa Sociale

Objective:
- increase awareness on manipulation of images as a global trend
- increase awareness on the emotions that the images can cause
- strengthen observation and analytical skills applied to the images

Duration: 1,5 / 2 hours

Number of participants: 20 – 25

Age: 13+

Difficulty: average to advanced

Format/ Conditions: group activity / Wi-fi access /previous knowledge on the

topic not necessary

Material: Participants’ smartphones or tablets (at least 1 device per group),

projector, printed articles and pictures (see below), pens, paper

Preparation: Prepare some articles where pictures have been manipulated, no

matter if the articles are “real” ones or created for the activity, and the originals
of the pictures used in the articles. Look for very ‘emotional’ articles where
original pictures are quite far from the content of the article itself.

Description: Participants are divided into small groups; each group receives a
different article.

Phase 1
Participants look at the images and try to understand what has happened and
what the article is about. They can even try to understand what the news exactly
says. They discuss and agree on what is the situation shown and write it down.
Then each group shows the articles (that can also be projected on a big screen)
to the other groups and explain the situation in the picture.

Phase 2
Again in small groups, each group has its articles in the middle. The trainer gives
the original picture. Participants in small groups observe both images, try to
understand the kind of manipulation and the reason behind it (it can be linked to
the reason behind fake news). Each big group shows both images (manipulated
and real) and explains the differences, the hidden details and the reason of
manipulation in their opinion.

Tips for trainers:

● This activity can be done without any knowledge about the topic of fake
news and misinformation.
● This activity can be done as an introductory activity because on social
media all news are spread with images or videos.

Questions for debriefing

Debriefing can be carried out during the last part of phase 2. Guiding questions
after each group presentation or at the very end of the activity:
- How much did you pay attention to the images and videos in the
articles/post etc?
- Did any images cause emotions even before reading the post?
- What emotions could you identify when looking at the first image? What
emotions did you feel when looking at the original?
- Did you anticipate such a difference?

Tags: #images #manipulation #imagemanipulation #fake

4.1.43. What a picture! (2)

Partner: Jonathan Cooperativa Sociale

Source: Jonathan Cooperativa Sociale

Objective:
- increase awareness on manipulation of images as a global trend
- increase awareness on the emotions that the images can cause
- strengthen observation and analytical skills applied to the images

Duration: 1,5/2 hours

Number of participants: 20 – 25

Age: 14+

Difficulty: average to advanced

Format/ Conditions: group activity / Wi-fi access /previous knowledge on the

topic not necessary

Material: Participants’ smartphones or tablets (at least 1 device per group),

projector, pens, papers, newspapers, magazines, posters.

Preparation: Prepare a few articles where the pictures have been manipulated,
e.g. changed, zoomed in, partially used. You can pick the real articles or create
your own examples for the activity. Look for ‘emotional’ articles where original
pictures are quite far from the content of the article itself. Some examples are
provided below.

Description: Participants are divided into small groups, each group receives a
different article.

Phase 1
Participants look at the images and try to understand what has happened and
what the article is about. They discuss and agree on what is the situation shown
and write it down. Then each group shows the articles (that can be projected on
a big screen) to other groups and explains the situation in the picture. After the
first round of explanation, the facilitator shows on a big screen, one by one, each
article, the original pictures and asks participants questions, e.g.did you expect
such a difference? Did both images cause the same emotions?

Phase 2
Again in small groups, each group tries to manipulate images and create an
article on their own. They can choose a picture from a newspaper, or take a
picture with their mobile phone and manipulate it. The original will be shown
later.

Once they have created an article and the manipulated image, each group
presents the poster with their article and manipulated images. They explain the
fact, e.g. what an image shows, and only after this presentation the real picture
will be shown on the big screen and explained.
Tips for trainers:
● This activity can be done without any knowledge about the topic of fake
news and misinformation.
● This activity can even be done as an introductory activity because on
social media all news is spread using images or videos.

Questions for debriefing:

To be carried out during the last part of phase 2, or at the very end of the
activity.
- How much did you pay attention to the images and videos in the
articles/post etc?
- Did any image cause emotions even before reading the post?
- What emotions could you identify looking at the first image? What
emotions did you feel when looking at the original?
- Did you anticipate such a difference?

Tags: #images #manipulation #imagemanipulation #fake

4.1.44. Who wants to be a millionaire?!

Partner: Future Balloons

Source: adapted from a popular TV show to the FAKE OFF project

Objective: Testing knowledge about media literacy and Fake News

Duration: 20-25 mins.

Number of participants: 10-20

Age: 13+

Difficulty level: average

Format/Conditions: The trainer must be aware of the FAKE OFF project and is
familiar with the questions and correct answers of the Quiz in the FAKE OFF App
For correct answers of the Quiz, check this link:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1TlFpdi7-
2R9205qag2BiC3ZTQexwJL0g/view?usp=sharing
Material: table with four chairs, buzz, other chairs, put in 4 parallel rows one
after each other, projector and PC with App installed

Description: Put a table in the middle for the 4 players with a buzz in the middle.
Split the class into four teams and assign them one row each.
Each group plays at the same time, and groups rotate at each question. The
central table is always occupied by one member of each group. Other members
sit in a “train carriage” order in 4 rows. After each round, the person sitting in
the front row moves to the central table and the previous player moves to the
back seat.
The table members compete to be the first to buzz and answer the question. If
they answer correctly, they win a point. If not, the second fastest person to buzz
has a chance to answer and so on.
In the end of the quiz, the group with more points wins.

Tips for Trainers:

● The trainer can allow the players to discuss the question with(in) their
group.

Questions for debriefing: Was this very difficult? How much did you know/ not
know?

Tags: #Fakenews, #realityshow, #teamgame, #medialiteracy

STEP 2. Create new habits

4.1.45. One day completely different: my documentation

Partner: ÖIAT
Source: ÖIAT

Objective: Reflect how life would be without a smartphone: how life is being
organized, where to get information, how to communicate with friends.

Duration: one day

Number of participants: 2-20

Age: From age on when participants have had a smartphone for at least half a
year.
Difficulty: average

Conditions/Format: individual or group activity.

Participants commit to giving away their smartphones (“Just imagine, your

phone must be repaired, and it is gone for 24 hours. How would you do all your
things? What is the difference? Where do you get all your relevant
information?”)

Material: Tools to create the documentation “One day without my smartphone”:

digital tools, such as video, paper-diary, etc.

Preparation: Participants have their one day without a smartphone and make
notes on their experiences.

Description: Participants document their experiences. (Exaggerated? Downsized?

All good and no problems? Really terrible?)
Stage 1: Participants decide on how the “documentation” should be like. True or
fake?
Stage 2: Decide on how to document the process: a video, a vlog or any other
creative result in order to show how this day is being set into practice.
Stage 3: If possible, show it to others and then let them guess: Was that true or
fake?

Tips for Trainers:

● It is easier if participants are voluntarily part of this exercise in order to
achieve results.

Questions for debriefing:

● What was surprising?
● What was easy?
● What did we learn?
● Can that be done on a daily routine?

Tags: #Fakenews, #smartphone, #creative, #reflection

4.1.46. One day completely different - 2: the challenge

Partner: ÖIAT
Source: ÖIAT
Objective: Reflect on routines that change if you do not have your normal
technological environment

Duration: 1 week

Number of participants: 5-20

Age: 12+

Difficulty: advanced

Conditions/Format: Individual or group challenge.

Material: Winner awards.

Preparation: Prepare the challenge that is suitable for your participants and your
situation.

Description:
Young people spend one day (or a few hours) without their smartphone. After
this time they reflect how that was possible. After that they reflect how life is
being organized, where to get information, how to communicate with friends.

Variation 1: Group challenge

All participants are divided in groups. Each group has to conduct their tasks, e.g.
as a relay: organize a meeting among friends without digital tools. Conduct a
search on a typical fake news topic without digital tools. Show a picture of your
school neighbour, of your last family meal without digital tools.
Each participant has to do one task and “prove” it to the game master (e.g. by
naming a “witness”). When the task is fulfilled, the next person can start.

Winner is the group who is finished first and all tasks are proved.

Variation 2: Individual challenge - who can do it longest?

Who can “survive” longest without a phone? Agree on the challenge and on the
rules beforehand. Develop them together (who is game master? how is it
proved? …) What is the winner getting?

Tips for Trainers:

● Put it into a challenge, into a game. Be sure that some benefit can be
seen: a prize, some recognition within the organization.
● Make an event. A week later, reflect, how it has changed life after the
event. Has something changed?

Questions for debriefing:

● What does it take to change my daily routines?
 ● How does this affect my information sources?
● Which would be a good idea also to use them when I have my phone
again?

Tags: #challenge, #changeroutines, #informationsources

4.1.47. Freeze

Partner: ÖIAT
Source: ÖIAT

Objective: Get good ideas to fight fake news within a moving game

Duration: 10 minutes

Number of participants: 5-100

Age: all ages

Difficulty: easy

Format: outdoor game on the playground/lawn/sport area

Material: enough space

Preparation: -

Description: All participants stand on one side of the playing area. The game
master is on the other side and faces away and says: “We fight fake news” then
turns around. While he/she is saying it, all participants try to get closer. If
he/she turns around, nobody moves, all freeze. If she/he spots somebody who
moves, this person has to say a good idea, what can be done against fake news
in kids daily life. If he/she says something new, the person can stay in the
game, otherwise has to drop out.

Tips for Trainers:

● This is a good exercise to work on fake news. How to integrate their
detection into daily life. This exercise should not stand alone.

Questions for debriefing:

 ● What are the ideas you like?
● What would you like to implement in your everyday life?

Tags: #outdoor, #game, #fakenews #ideas

4.1.48. ‘Fake news’ handball

Partner: ÖIAT
Source: ÖIAT

Objective: Get good ideas to fight fake news within a moving game

Duration: 10 min

Number of participants: 10-50

Age: 10+

Difficulty: easy

Format/Conditions: Outdoor game on the playground/lawn/sport area

Material: a ball

Preparation: -

Description:
A ball symbolizes fake news. The game master passes the ball to a participant,
this person has to say something that can be done against fake news. It always
has to be something new. If a person cannot add something new, he/she drops
out.

Tips for Trainers:

● The trainer should use this exercise in combination with other exercises,
rather not as a stand-alone.

Questions for debriefing:

● How does this work in “real life”?
● How can we be aware when the “fake news ball” comes into our lives?

Tags: #outdoor, #fakenews, #game

4.1.49. Collect ideas against fake news

Partner: ÖIAT
Source: ÖIAT

Objective: Collect and memorize ideas against fake news

Duration: 5min-30min

Number of participants: 5-20

Age: 12+

Difficulty: easy

Format: group activity

Material: -

Preparation: -

Description: All participants sit in a circle. One after the other adds an idea to
the groups fight against fake news: “Our good idea against fake news…”
Everybody starts with this sentence and then repeats what the people before
said:

Person A: “Our good idea against fake news: stop reading tabloid newspapers”
Person B: “Our good idea against fake news: stop reading the tabloid
newspapers, always check sources twice, before passing news on.”
Person C: “Our good idea against fake news: stop reading tabloid newspapers,
always check sources twice, before passing news on, check images and text.”

Tips for Trainers:

● The trainer can ask a few weeks later what participants remember and
if/how they acted accordingly.
● The arrangement of the participants can also be changed: standing in a
circle or forming an arch.
● In preparation, the trainer could show the group a picture, a tweet, or a
message to illustrate the actions needed to collect ideas.

Questions for debriefing:

● How do we remember this?
● How do we act accordingly in the next few months?

Tags: #groupactivity, #fakenews, #memory, #game

4.1.50. Guessing bad habits

Partner: YEPP EUROPE

Source: Youth group games. Satya Murthy, 11 Apr 2018:
https://youthgroupgames.com.au/games/857/bad-habits/

Objective:
Identify your own bad habits and guess bad habits of peers.
Learn to be honest, relevant, hilarious and tolerant of others’ reactions.

Duration:
15-20 minutes

Number of participants:
10-20

Age:
12+

Difficulty level: Easy

Format/Conditions: None

Material: A4 size paper - 5 (for 20 participants)

Preparation: cut small pieces of paper

Description:
Distribute a small piece of white paper (A4 size paper cut into 4 pieces and give
each piece to every participant).
Each participant must write ONE bad habit concerning their media consumption
(for example, watching Netflix series all night long, emotional online shopping,
wasting time on Instagram) in a simple sentence without letting the others
know.
Collect all the paper pieces. Distribute them again randomly.
Each person takes it in turn to read out the bad habit on the paper, and then
others can try to guess whose bad habit it is.
The person whose bad habit it is will need to acknowledge when the group has
guessed right.

Tips for Trainers:

 ● Create a fun and trustful atmosphere. It is not about exposing people,
rather about reflecting on bad habits (which everybody has) and having
fun.
● If your group does not want to reveal who habit it is, here a variation:
collect all the bad habits, put them on the wall, ask people to walk around
and stick a dot next to a habit they also have (for example, if I also stay
up long watching Netflix). This exercise illustrates the fact that we all have
bad habits, and some of them are the same.

Questions for debriefing:

● What are some common habits?
● Do you want to change some of your bad habits?
● Do you know how to change them? Do you find it difficult?
● What about bad habits when it comes to your usage of Social Media?

Tags: #Badhabits, #changinghabits

4.1.51. Breaking habits

Partner: YEPP EUROPE

Source: YEPP EUROPE

Objective:
To learn how habits are created, identify what triggers habits, identify your
motivation for change and figure out how to minimize barriers that get in the
way of change.

Duration:
20-30 minutes

Number of participants:
10-20

Age:
12+

Difficulty level: Average

Format/Conditions:
You need a room with chairs

Material: A4 paper folded as a booklet for each participant

Preparation: Cards with key words, habit change loop poster (s. image)

Description:
1. Ask participants what they know about habits. What is a habit? Write
down some keywords that are close to the definition, like unconscious,
repeated, learned behaviour. Ask for examples of healthy and unhealthy
habits, and also if they believe that habits can be changed.
2. Introduce a habit loop poster - how to change habits:

3. Explain that each habit, whether healthy or unhealthy, bears certain

benefits which trigger us to repeated behaviour reproducing a habit, a so-
called “habit loop”. In order to change a habit, we need to keep the
trigger providing the same benefit and just replace the routine (habit). An
example: if drinking coffee (habit) is caused by the need to have free time
(trigger) and feeling more relaxed (benefit), the same benefit of feeling
relaxed could be possibly achieved through just taking more breaks
and/or having healthy supplements, such as juices.
4. Split the group into groups of 3-4 people, give them the A4 paper, ask
them to fold it and write their name on a cover page.
 5. Ask them to think of one habit they want to change. What is a trigger?
Benefit? Consequence? Now, choose a healthy substitute. What is your
motivation for change? What benefits does it have? What new (healthier)
consequence? What can you do to make it easier?
6. Introduce barriers to change - things which prevent you from sticking to
your plan, and what small tricks they could do to make it easier to change
the habit. (Example: if you want to start exercising in the morning, lay out
your exercise clothes the night before; if you want to stop spending
money online, cancel any saved credit cards online and put your credit
cards somewhere they are hard to obtain. This is their strategy for
minimizing the barriers to change. Have them write this down.
7. When finished, ask them to share in small groups. Tell participants that
sharing goals with others has also been shown to increase our success.
Ask if anyone would like to share their plans with the group.

Tips for Trainers:

● It is important to create an atmosphere of trust. It is not about judging
people but about learning how to change bad habits (which we all have).
● The trainer needs to encourage the teams to follow up with each other to
see how they are doing with their plans and to offer support.
● The trainer needs to instruct the participants that they should place the
paper with their motivation and plan somewhere they will see it every day
as they work to change your habit.
● The trainer can make a follow up after a month and discuss how everyone
did. Were the participants successful? If not, what were the barriers?

Questions for debriefing:

● What are some steps participants came up with to remove barriers to

habit change?
● What are examples of replacement behaviors we can use?
● Do the replacement behaviors you came up with offer any type of
“reward”?

Tags:#Badhabits, #changinghabits

4.1.52. Online behavior change

Partner: YEPP EUROPE

Source: YEPP EUROPE
Objective: To learn how to identify unhealthy habits in online behaviour and
decide what we can do differently in order to reach our personal goals

Duration:
20 minutes

Number of participants:
10-20

Age:
12+

Difficulty level: average

Format/Conditions:

Material:
Pen and paper

Preparation:
No preparation needed

Description:

1. Ask young people what ideas they have for more conscious online
behavior. Refer to what they already know from previous exercises or
inputs, e.g. check newspaper domains, read the privacy policy, check
impressum, report fake news on social media, reduce checking your
phone from every 10 min. to every 30 min., start picking up new hobbies,
etc.
2. Ask them to choose a new habit - a conscious replacement behavior.
3. Ask them to think about what their reward is.
4. And finally, what they can do to make it easier to adapt a new habit in
everyday life, e.g. putting the phone away overnight if they want more
time off in the morning, cancel any saved credit cards online and put your
credit cards somewhere they are hard to obtain.
5. Participants write down the answers in their notebooks.

Tips for Trainers:

● For some groups of people, it may be necessary to discuss topics such as
privacy settings, how to report, what and where the imprint is, etc. in
advance.
● A good follow-up exercise after this exercise is “Habit loop”.
● A good idea is to introduce a “Challenge buddy” - someone with whom
they can share their new commitment. It does not have to be a friend but
 a peer who they can contact regularly and motivate each other for
installing new habits.

Questions for debriefing:

● What did you learn through this exercise?
● What new habits and skills do you think you can acquire and keep?

Tags: #habits, #changinghabits

4.1.53. The habits of your role model

Partner: YEPP EUROPE

Source: YEPP EUROPE

Objective: To learn how to identify good and bad habits and change them in
order to reach your personal goals

Duration:
20 minutes

Number of participants:
10-20

Age:
12+

Difficulty level: average

Format/Conditions:
You need a room with chairs

Material:
Pen and paper

Preparation:
No preparation needed

Description:
You can work with the big group guiding them through questions or you can split
them into smaller groups so they can discuss the questions and answers in the
smaller group.
Ask participants to note their answers to the questions on a piece of paper.
 - Think of (one of) your role models.
- What are the things you admire about this person or the skills this
person has, which you would also like to have?
- What are three or four habits of this person which you think (or know)
are directly linked to these skills or the things you admire about this
person?
- Which of these habits do you think you could easily copy in order to
acquire these skills or in order to be more like this person?
- Imagine yourself having these habits – how much closer of being like
your role model would you be
- Visualise yourself having these habits and the skills or aptitudes of your
role model.

Tips for Trainers:

● When the trainer works with smaller groups, he/she can ask the
participants to share their experiences in the bigger group.
● The trainer can extend this topic and how everyone can acquire skills and
confidence through the technique of “Fake it Till You Make it”.
● The group can also watch the inspiring TED talk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RVmMeMcGc0Y

Questions for debriefing:

● What did you learn through this exercise?
● What new habits and skills do you think you can acquire and keep?

Tags: #habits, #changinghabits

4.1.54. Replacing bad habits

Partner: YEPP EUROPE

Source: YEPP EUROPE

Objective:
To learn about own bad habits, what triggers them and what new habits could
replace the bad ones.

Duration:
20-30 minutes

Number of participants:
10-20
Age:
12+

Difficulty level: Average

Format/Conditions:
You need a room with chairs

Material:
Pen and paper

Preparation:
No preparation needed

Description:
You can talk participants through the following questions and ask them to write
the answers on a piece of paper. They should create several columns on a sheet
of paper with the following titles:

Bad habit Motivation Consequence New Motivation Consequences

for a bad s habit for a new /Reward/
habit habit Change

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

As a second step, discuss what people have put on their papers in the bigger
group.

The steps:
- Ask people to write down 5 bad habits they have
- Ask them what triggers or motivates them to have this habit.
- Ask them of the (bad) consequence each bad habit has
- Ask if they can think of a new habit which could replace the bad
habit
 - Ask them what motivation they would have and what new
consequence, reward or change they think would occur

Tips for Trainers:

● The trainer needs to give the participants enough time to think about the
different questions and to write them down. The trainer then may ask the
participants to share some of the examples within the group.
● The trainer must ensure that there is sufficient time for reflection by the
participants.
● The trainer could also do the exercise in two steps:
○ Step1: Three bad habits in their day to day life + filling in the chart
(as in the example above)
○ Step2: Three bad behaviors in their online behavior exclusively +
filling in the chart

Questions for debriefing:

● Ask people to think of their online behavior and if they can think of the
same questions.

Tags: #Badhabits, #changing habits, #onlinebehavior

4.3.55. Ethical online behavior

Partner: YEPP EUROPE

Source: YEPP EUROPE

Objective:
To self-evaluate your own ethics when it comes to online behavior

Duration:
20-30 minutes

Number of participants:
10-20

Age:
12+

Difficulty level: Average

Format/Conditions:
You need a room with chairs
 Material:
Flip chart and coloured dots, or pens

Preparation:
Or you can write the questions/chart on a flip chart

Description:
Present the chart and read the following questions to the people. After you read
each question, ask people to place a dot on the chart (or alternatively make a
cross or a dot with a pen).

When you are/post online… YES / OFTEN SOMETIMES RARELY NO, NEVER

Do you exaggerate about your

success?

Do you intentionally lie?

Do you leave out necessary

information?

Are you 100% honest?

Do you use violent or offensive

language?

Do you respect other people’s

opinions?

Do you respect individual rights?

Are you fair to other people?

Are you respecting people’s dignity?

Do you pick on people’s weaknesses ?

Do you respect diversity?

Do you react when people make

offensive comments?
Do you share racist content?

Do you share discriminatory content?

Find more questions which suit your

group …

Once people have placed their dots, discuss certain questions with the group.
What is your understanding of offensive language? Being fair? Discriminatory?
Lying? etc.

Tips for Trainers:

● This is not about the right answers and people might try to give a better
image of themselves than how their online behaviour in reality is. But it is
more about the discussion which is triggered by these questions, the
individual understanding of these topics by different people in the room.
At the same time there is something what we call ethical behaviour which
involves all these aspects in the chart and that we need to be aware of it
and be self-critical. Is our behaviour always 100% ethical, or can we do
better?

Questions for debriefing:

See above

Tags: #Ethics, #ethicalonlinebehaviour

4.1.56. Critical Thinking

Partner: YEPP EUROPE

Source: Facing History and Ourselves – Resource Library – Teaching Strategies-
Barometer: Taking a Stand on Controversial Issues
https://www.facinghistory.org/resource-library/teaching-strategies/barometer-
taking-stand-controversial-issues

Objective:
To foster critical thinking and learn how to deal with people having different
opinions on subjects. Also to learn how to defend an idea with arguments.

Duration:
20-30 min
Number of participants:
10-20

Age:
12+

Difficulty level: Average

Format/Conditions:
Have a room big enough for participants to move around

Material:
No material needed

Preparation:
The trainer should make sure he/she has enough space in the room so people
can stand in a line or a U-shape. The "Strongly Agree" and "Strongly Disagree"
signs should be placed at opposite ends of a room.

Description:
Agreement should be made with the participants that there needs to be respect
for different points of views and opinions, and to ask them to be honest but not
insulting and to be constructive when disagreeing.
The trainer reads a statement such as „Immigrants should accept our rules and
culture if they want to live in our country, no matter what“
Or „The best way to deal with crime in our city is to re-introduce the death
penalty“
Themes and statements should be chosen which would fit to the group or their
interests.
1) The trainer should give participants a few minutes to reflect on the
statement and ask them to stand on the spot along the line that represents
their opinion, telling them that if they stand at either extreme, they are
absolute in their agreement or disagreement. They may stand anywhere
between the two extremes, depending on how much they do or do not agree
with the statement.

2) The trainer then asks some people why they are standing where they are
standing and to defend their stance and get opposite opinions. After about
three or four viewpoints are heard, ask if anyone wishes to move. The trainer
should encourage the participants to keep an open mind; they are allowed to
move if someone presents an argument that alters where they want to stand
on the line. The activity should be running until the trainer thinks that most or
all voices have been heard, making sure that no one person dominates.

Tips for Trainers:

 ● The Barometer teaching strategy is especially useful when the trainer
wants to discuss an issue about which participants have a wide range of
opinions, because a Barometer activity gets many arguments out on the
table.

Questions for debriefing

● There are many ways the trainer can debrief this exercise. The students
can reflect in groups about how the activity changed or reinforced their
original opinion. Or the trainer can chart the main “for” and “against”
arguments on the board as a whole-class activity.

Tags: #Barometer, #critical thinking

4.1.57. Just Listen

Partner: YEPP EUROPE

Source: MindTools Essential skills for an excellent career- Team Building
Exercises – Communication – Exercise 4:
https://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/team-building-communication.htm

Objective:
This activity strengthens the participants listening skills. Listening is an
incredibly important part of good communication, and it's a skill that people
often ignore in team activities. This activity also shows them how to listen with
an open mind and they learn how easily we can make little mistakes when
recapping on what we have listened to. Like on social media, sometimes
misinformation is repeated and shared online, because people have missed out
information, exaggerated or misunderstood. Sometimes it is also advisable to
not react (like, share, comment, ...) online and to rather wait or think twice
before reacting and respect other people’s opinions.

Duration:
20-30 min

Number of participants:
10-20

Age:
12+

Difficulty level: average

Format/Conditions:
An even number of team members, ideally. A private room.

Material:
Eight index cards for each team of two. Each card should list one topic. The
topics should be interesting, but not too controversial. One does not want the
listeners disliking the speakers just because they disagree with their
viewpoint.

Preparation:
The trainer has to prepare the index cards beforehand

Description:
This is an activity that encourages participants to communicate how they feel
about a subject. People get into pairs and one member talks about his or her
opinions. His partner listens without speaking, and then, without rebuttal, recaps
on what has been said.
1. The participants need to sit down in pairs.
2. Each pair will be given eight index cards.
3. One partner will blindly choose a card and then speak for three
minutes on how she feels about the topic. As he/she talks, the other
person cannot speak – his/her goal is to listen.
4. After three minutes, the listener has one minute to recap on what the
partner has said. The listener cannot debate, agree or disagree – only
summarize.
5. Next, the roles switch, and the process starts again.

Tips for Trainers:

● The trainer should talk with the participants about how they felt about this
exercise.

Questions for debriefing:

- How did speakers feel about their partners' ability to listen with an open
mind?
- Communicate how they felt about what was being said?
- How did listeners feel about not being able to speak about their own views
on the topic? How well were they able to keep an open mind? How well did
they listen?
- How well did the listening partners summarize the speakers' opinions? Did
they get better as the exercise progressed?
- How can they use the lessons from this exercise in your online behavior?

Tags:
#Listening, #openmind, #respectopinions
4.1.58. The Online Behavior Stop Dance

Partner: YEPP EUROPE

Source: YEPP EUROPE

Objective:
To express through body language how to react to (potentially) fake news online

Duration:
20 minutes

Number of participants:
10-20

Age:
12+

Difficulty level: average

Format/Conditions:
A room is needed with enough space for participants to move around

Material:
Projector
Music player (can be a mobile phone)

Preparation:
Not needed

Description:
Explaining the rules to the group:
- Music will be played and participants should dance to the music
- Meanwhile a (fake or real) news will be shown on the screen. This can be
from the Fake Off examples or news the trainer chooses.
- Then the music stops and the participants have to show through body
language how they would react to this news.
- Once everybody makes the body or hand sign, some people will be asked
to explain their choice.
- Then the music starts again and people are asked to continue dancing, till
the next news will be shown and till the music will be stopped again.

The body movements or postures which represents the online reactions:

I like

I love

I hate

I share

I research /
check the
source

I wait / I do
not react

I comment,
saying this is
fake
You can add
more reactions
if you want …

Tips for Trainers:

● Talk with participants about how they felt about this exercise.

Questions for debriefing:

● How did you feel during the activity?
● What did you learn about your body’s responses to the emotions the news
provokes?

Tags: #Dance, #bodylanguage, #onlinebehavior

4.1.59. My SOCIAL MEDIA USER from the past…and future!

Partner: GoEurope
Source: GoEurope

Objective: To reflect on our own habits (past and current) when using social
media through peer-to-peer learning (a young person to another young person)
or even by intergenerational learning (adult to a young person)

Duration: 30 mins.

Number of participants: 4-14

Age: 13+

Difficulty level: advanced

Conditions/Formal: Pairs exercise

Material: It is necessary to have a piece of paper with the following template, so

all can follow the same instructions

For the youngest one in the pair

(THE SOCIAL MEDIA USER FROM THE PAST)
Social media (Facebook,
Instagram, etc.)

What is my profile picture?

What does it contain?
What do I want to
show/express?

How many
followers/friends do I
have? How many do I
want to reach? Why?

What are the things I like

to see the most on social
media?
- Topics
- Type (videos, posts,
pics…)
- Why do I like them
the most?

What is the most

important advice I would
say to my social media
user from the future (my
partner)?

(one sentence is enough)

For the oldest one in the pair

(THE SOCIAL MEDIA USER FROM THE FUTURE)

Social media (Facebook,

Instagram, etc.)
What was my profile pic
when I was _______ (age
of the partner)? What did
it contain? What did I
want to show/express?

And now, what does it

contain? What do I want
to show/express?

How many
followers/friends did I
have when I was
_____________ (age of
the partner)?

And now, how many do I

have? Do I want to
increase or reduce the
number? Why?

What are the things I liked

to see the most on social
media when I
was________ (age of the
partner)?
- Topics
- Type (videos, posts,
pics…)
- Why did I like them
the most?

And now, what are the

things I liked to see the
most on social media
(topics, types of things,
etc.)? Why?
What is the most
important advice I would
say to my social media
user from the past (my
partner)?

(one sentence is enough)

Preparation: The group of participants needs to be intergenerational. It means,

participants of different ages. It is important that there is the same number of
“social media users from the past” and “social media users from the future”, so
they can create pairs. They also need to have social media profiles. The group is
divided in pairs, so each person needs to find an older/younger “buddy” for the
activity. It means, for example, a person who is 14 years old needs to find a
partner who is 19 years old, and vice versa.

Description: The participants will have 10 minutes to fill in the assigned template
individually. They can even check things in their social media profiles in order to
fill in the template (if needed). After 10 minutes, they will give the filled-out
template to the partner (the social media user from the past to the one from the
future, and vice versa), and they will have 5 minutes to read it carefully. Then,
they will have another 5 minutes to discuss in pairs about “what do I think about
the answers I got from my partner?”.

Finally, after the discussion in pairs, the big group gathers together in a circle
and debates in plenary about what they talked about while debating in pairs (it
is possible to use the “Questions for debriefing” to guide the debate).

Tips for Trainers:

● The activity can be applied in youth exchanges, or activities with young
people, where the age of participants is not homogeneous, so it can be a
way to promote the exchange of experiences among them, as well as
peer-to-peer learning (a young person to another young person). On the
other hand, this proposal might be even used for an activity between
parents and young people.

Questions for debriefing:

- Did we choose the same social media? Does it matter?
- What was the most surprising thing you heard from another social media
user from the past/future?
- What do you think about some expressed online behaviours?
 - Are the expressed online behaviours related to the fact of being exposed
to fake news to a greater or lesser extent?

Tags: #socialmedia #userbehaviour

4.1.60. Are you here?

Partner: Jonathan Cooperativa Sociale

Source: Jonathan Cooperativa Sociale

Objective:
- Reflect on the importance of time and on how people listen and get
information;
- Reflect on listening and reading dynamics on social media and the
internet;
- Reflect on your habits in listening and reading, offline and online;
- Increase awareness on the effects of our behaviour online and offline and
how we can generate opinions about the others with our behaviour.

Duration: 1 hour

Number of participants: about 25

Age: 14+

Difficulty level: average

Format/Conditions: group activity. Tasks and role of both ‘groups’ need to be a

secret

Material: paper and pen, roles and tasks of group A and group B written down,
plus 1 mobile phone or device with Internet connection per pair

Preparation: Write instructions for role A and role B on separate pieces of paper
as described in Phase 1 below. Split the group in half. One half gets A paper, and
another B paper. Make sure you have an even number of participants to form
pairs, e.g. 10 for A and 10 for B. Each instruction paper also contains mandatory
rules (see below).

Description:

Phase 1
Participants are divided in pairs. In each pair, there is an A and a B participant.
The instructions for task A and task B are given separately to the Group A and
Group B. They should be kept secret from another group and not revealed to
their pair buddy.

Task A:
People with task A choose a topic they are really interested in. They explain to
their assigned mate their point of view, their feelings, etc. It is like a monologue.

Task B:
People in group B think about a topic they are interested in. They have to search
and read in silence articles and news about it.

Once they are ready and have chosen the topic, the facilitator gives the signal to
start and they can carry out their own task.

Mandatory rules for everybody (except to keep secret your task from the
opposite group):
1- to accomplish the task, no matter what the mate is doing,
2- always stay together with his/her given mate,
3- use the whole time to accomplish the given task, e.g. not stop earlier.

The game can last just a few minutes. The facilitator announces how much time
participants have.

Phase 2
After the exercise, on a white paper each participant answers these questions:
How did you feel in your role? Did you expect more attention? Does it happen to
you to be so distracted on social media and in Internet while reading an article,
a post, a news article? And when it happens, do you share or like?

Tips for Trainers:

● A further development is to switch the roles, so people of group B can
explain and share opinions on the article or topic they read and people of
group A can be the ‘distracted’ ones, giving them a choice to really be
distracted or listen to his/her mate.

Questions for debriefing:

● How did you feel in your role?
● Did your emotions change as time passed by?
● Especially people from group A, how did you feel?
● And in general, A and B, how often does it happen to behave like group B?
● Does it happen to you to be so distracted in social media and web while
reading an article, a post, a news? And when it happens, do you share or
like it?
 ● Do you think your actions in sharing and ‘likes’ have effects on your social
contacts/followers/etc.?

Tags: #onlinebehavior #habits #listeningandreading #communication

4.1.61. Healthy communication

Partner: Jonathan Cooperativa Sociale

Source: Jonathan Cooperativa Sociale

Objective:
- To make participants reflect and adopt adequate rules when
communicating online and moving around fake news;
- To make participants reflect on what they are reading/watching before
sharing, liking, etc.;
- To make participants aware of their own responsibility for their actions
online and their impact on the opinions of other people.

Duration: 2 h/2,5h

Number of participants: about 20

Age: 14+

Difficulty level: easy

Format/Conditions: small group activity / no particular requirement

Material: mobile phones and pc; interactive whiteboard / video projector

Preparation: none

Description:
Participants are divided into groups of 5-6 people and are asked to think about
what the right rules could be to communicate efficiently and correctly online in
order not to damage, offend or impact anybody negatively, and also to
adequately face/extricate and approach fake news.
After that, they discuss and share in a big group what emerged.

In a big group, they come up with Top 10 rules for two areas each:
1) how to communicate efficiently online,
2) how to navigate in the world of fake news.
After that young people are split in two groups corresponding to two topics and
create a short video tutorial for each topic.

Tips for Trainers:

● For this activity, young people need to know in-depth the list of the core
theoretical elements about media, and especially communication literacy
and misinformation dynamics.
● During the tutorial production, it is important for the trainers to guide
and/or facilitate the roles assignment, in order to make each participant
contribute to its realization.

Questions for debriefing:

Was it difficult to come up with the top 10 rules? Do you think that some rules
have been left out? Do you think these top 10 rules are something new for your
friends or family? Do you already respect some of these rules? which ones? Are
there any rules that you didn't know before and that you would like to follow
soon? What did you learn from this exercise?

Tags: #communication #onlinebehaviour #fakenews #habits

4.1.62. Medical leaflet

Partner: Jonathan Cooperativa Sociale

Source: Jonathan Cooperativa Sociale

Objective:
- make participants aware of their habits in using ICT and social media;
- make participants aware of the opportunities and limits of social media
and the internet;
- make participants more aware of the reasons behind the creation of social
media and reflect on their evolution.

Duration: 1,5 h

Number of participants: about 25

Age: 14 +

Difficulty level: average

Format/Conditions: small group activity / no particular requirements

Material: smartphone or pc, paper and pens or colours, posters

Preparation: Big-sized paper and crayons for designing the leaflet. Prepare a
quiz about social media channels, e.g. Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, etc. You
can use Kahoot application https://kahoot.com to make it more motivational and
participative.
The questions for the quiz should aim at making participants reflect on social
media, their ‘hidden’ dynamics, their risks and benefits, but also if they are
aware of how their behaviour is affected by them and how much time they
spend there.
Examples of the questions for the Quiz:
- Do you think Instagram has been created just to help people to
communicate in an innovative way?
- In your opinion, are Instagram and Facebook managed by the same
company?
- Have you ever checked how much time you spend daily in social media?
- How many times do you think you forward a Whatsapp message and click
on like on Instagram? ok, now check.
- Do you think it is possible to give evidence to Instagram administrator
about ‘bad’ content? And on Facebook?
- How many times do you pay attention to what your friends share and ‘like’
before you take the turn to share and like?

Description:
The trainer divides the participants in the groups of 4-5 people.

Phase 1
Participants play the quiz prepared by the trainer to get an overview of their
knowledge about the reasons behind the creation of FB, the creation of
Instagram, functions of Snapchat etc. and discuss their answers.

Phase 2
The small groups create a satirical “medical leaflet” for one social media channel
of their choice, indicating composition, indications, dosage, contraindications and
side effects.

Once the groups finish, they show and explain their leaflet and a discussion
follows.

Tips for Trainers:

● It is important for young people before doing the activity to have an
understanding of different aspects of the topic of fake news and media
literacy.
 ● For the question for the quiz, you can look on already done Kahoot quiz or
look some specific information about Socials ‘property’ and basic
functioning. Some interesting input can be given by TED Talks by ‘Tristan
Harris’ like
https://www.ted.com/talks/tristan_harris_how_a_handful_of_tech_compa
nies_control_billions_of_minds_every_day or
https://www.ted.com/talks/dan_bellack_making_sense_in_a_fake_news_
world

Questions for debriefing:

● What do all social media have in common?
● What differentiates them the most?
● What are the advantages and disadvantages?
● Do you think the side effects are the same for everybody?
● Why did you put that specific side effect?
● Do you think there is something we can do to reduce the potential side
effects?

Tags: #habits #risks #fakenews #socials

4.1.63. Media Diary

Number: LOGO
Source: LOGO

Objective: Establish the extent and range of media usage of young people.

Duration: A week

Number of participants: not specified

Age: 14+

Difficulty level: average

Conditions: no special conditions

Material: no specific materials needed.

Preparation: If the trainer wants, he/she can design a template. Before starting,
the participants should estimate their daily/weekly media consumption time.
Description: The participants should keep notes of their media usage during a
week (also possible for a day, but the longer the better). Different categories
that should be noted: Time, what sort of media, who owns the medium, what
genre of medium, how long, alone or in company, background or not, discussed
with others. After the agreed time, the participants compare their media usage
by time, type and other categories.

Tips for Trainers:

● If there is time, the participants should take one story of this time and
compare their medium with others on that story. Are there major
differences?
● The exercise is easier to perform if the group is rather homogeneous in
age.

Questions for debriefing:

● What media channels do you mainly interact with? Who owns them?
● How does the media consumption of the participants differ?
● How much was your estimate off the real value? Why?

Tags: #media #fakenews #mediaconsumption

4.1.64. Start a rumour!

Number: LOGO
Source: LOGO

Objective: To learn how easy it is to create a fake news story and what it needs

Duration: 2 hours+ (up to a week)

Number of participants: 5+

Age: 14+

Difficulty level: advanced

Conditions: Access to media (newspapers, Internet, etc.).

Material: Newspapers, computers, camera.

Preparation: none.
Description: Groups of up to 5 people are told to start a rumour. It should be
fake but convincing. They can work on/offline, with newspapers (and cuts)
and/or make their own pictures. Goal is to create a real-looking news story.

Tips for Trainers:

● If it is a long-time project, the trainer could make kind of a newspaper
with real and fake articles and let others decide which stories they believe
and which not.

Questions for debriefing:

● What does a real good story need?
● How easy is it to fake news?

Tags: #fakenews #stories

4.1.65. You better think!

Partner: Jonathan Cooperativa Sociale

Source: Jonathan Cooperativa Sociale

Objective:
● reflect on the flow and the wide social areas fake news phenomenon
touches;
● reflect on online behaviour with respect to information flow;
● reflect on the way people affect each other’s online behaviour;
● enhance capacity to check news reliability.

Duration: 1,5 h

Number of participants: about 20

Age: 14+

Difficulty level: average

Format/Conditions: group activity. A wall to hang up the poster is needed.

Material: some headlines of fake news, or fake news or real news (about
different topics) printed, participants’ mobile phones. Post-it notes and coloured
pencils.

Preparation: several fake news and real news placed on chairs previously
positioned in a circle; open big space. The printed news articles should have
space at the top and at the bottom of the page to allow people to write and
‘post’ reactions.

Description:
Several news are printed on big paper and participants are asked to take a look
at them, choose one and write their names on the white space at the top of the
page. Important: Each news can have just one name.
Once this 1st step is made, people are asked to attach their own news on the
wall, then they are asked to look at other participants’ news, choose about 5 of
them and react to them. The reactions are written on post-it notes and can be:
emoticons, e.g. like, anger, love, etc., sharings and even comments.
This is a kind of simulation on what happens usually on social media when a
news appears and people react by sharing, liking, etc.
After that, each participant steps in front of the news, looks at it and the
reaction received and makes a brief research on it, specifically on the life cycle
of the news: place of publication, reaction received, is it real news or fake news,
etc.
Once the research is finished, each participant presents the news and the results
of their research.

Tips for Trainers:

● It can be useful to present more news with respect to the number of
participants and after step 1 take out the ones that have not been chosen.
A questioning moment can be done right after the ‘reaction’ phase, before
the research, to make participants reflect on their preferences and on
their way of reacting that can be different from news to news.
● In the case of a large number of participants or participants with specific
characteristics, it is better to have them work in smaller groups or pairs.

Questions for debriefing:

● Why did you choose that news?
● Why did you put such reaction?
● Did you pay attention to earlier reactions before doing yours?
● Do you think you have been influenced by the reactions already done?
● Did it matter to you who were the people who ‘posted’ the news? If so,
why?
● Did your mate react similarly as users on social media?
● How do you feel knowing that you reacted to a real news?
● How do you feel knowing that you reacted to/shared/liked/etc. fake news?
● And how do you feel knowing that you reacted to fake news and others
considered your own reaction before they reacted when it was their turn?

Tags: #fakenews #habits #think #socials

4.1.66. Spot it!

Partner: Jonathan Cooperativa Sociale

Source: Jonathan Cooperativa Sociale

Objective:
- strengthen skills in spotting fake news;
- increase awareness of the flow of misinformation and the wide range of topics
it touches
- train participants in checking fake news

Duration: 1,5h

Number of participants: 20/25

Age: +15

Difficulty level: advanced

Format/Conditions: small group activity /no particular requirements

Material: at least 1 mobile phone or tablet per group, pen and paper, printed
‘criteria sheet’ (see below), a poster to sign the score, Wi-fi.

Preparation: The trainer should prepare as many levels as the number of groups
formed and hang up the score panel on the wall (or use the black/white board).

Description:
Participants need to form groups of 3, 4 or maximum 5 and each group has a
device connected to Wi-fi (or data connection). The purpose of the game is to
find in the shortest time possible the fake news that fit the criteria randomly
fished out (trainers can use one or more criteria). Each round stops as soon as a
group finds the news that fits in such criteria first; the fake news found is shared
and the key element referring to the criteria fished out is stressed.
The trainer signs the score in each round. The trainer can choose the total time
to spend on the game.

Tips for Trainers:

● The participants should have already acquired some theoretical base on
fake news dynamics and core elements. Depending on the elements
acquired, more and more ‘conditions’ can be added to the game for the
research (like videos/images, ..).
 ● It can also be used to approach some theoretical elements about the fake
news phenomenon by simplifying it using just one and easier criteria (i.e.
areas of topic).

Questions for debriefing:

● How was it?
● Was it easy?
● Do you think it was easy to find fake news fitting the criteria fished out?
● When facing this kind of news, do you think it is easy for you to recognize
them? What is the hardest fake news to find? And the easiest?

Tags: #fakenews #identify #habits #motives #topic

criteria cards (to be cut out)

1° CRITERIA: TYPES OF FAKE NEWS

SATIRE OR FALSE MISLEADIN IMPERSONA

PARODIE CONNECTION G CONTENT TION

MANIPULAT FABRICATE FALSE CONTEXT

ED INFORMATION D INFORMATION

2° CRITERIA: MOTIVATION BEHIND FAKE NEWS

POOR PARODY PROVOCATI PASSION

JOURNALISM ON
 PARTISANS PROFIT POLITICS PROPAGAN
HIP DA

3° CRITERIA: AREA OF THE TOPIC

STARS AND FOOD BODY SOCIAL

CELEBRITIES AND DIET IMAGE AND NETWORK AND
SEXUALITY MANIPULATION

HEALTH LIFESTYL WORD, PROPAGAN

E, BEAUTY, TECHNOLOGY DA AND POLITICS
SHOPPING, AND CRIME
FASHION

SCAREMONGE NATURE
RING, HOAX AND AND
GROUP PRESSURE ENVIRONMENT
STEP 3. Apply new habits in daily life

4.1.67. Fight fake news online - My answer depository

Partner: ÖIAT

Source: ÖIAT

Objective:
· Create a selection of answers that can be posted when fake news is
detected
· Be prepared for situations when detecting face news

Duration: 30 min

Number of participants: 2-10

Age: 12+

Difficulty level: average

Conditions/Format: pair exercise

Material: something to write, participants’ smartphones

Preparation: -

Description:
Step 1 – create a list with quotes
Participants work in pairs. They create a list which can be used in case:
· Someone detects fake news
· Someone wants to react to fake news
· Someone wants to make others aware of the problem of fake news

Step 2 – create a space where these quotes are accessible.

Participants try to make these quotes accessible for themselves in their daily life.
E.g. They write them in the note area of their smartphone, they create a padlet,
… Whatever is usable in daily life.
They try to work out how they can support each other in the pair. How to make
sure not to forget to use the list.

Step 3 (fake) – memes

They create memes from these quotes, which can be posted on social networks.

Tips for Trainers:

● The trainer should encourage young people to find their own ways and
own postings.
● It can be discussed in which situations these quotes can be used and what
kind of images in memes should be used, e.g. if copyright is being ignored
or not.

Questions for debriefing: -

Tags #awarenessraising #fightfakenews

4.1.68. My news detector update, or “check your source” day

Partner: ÖIAT

Source: ÖIAT

Objective:
• Revise your profound news sources every half year (for example the website
of the major newspaper in your country)
• Make sure that new profound sources are implemented in daily life

Duration: ongoing, but 20 min every half year

Number of participants: 1-5

Age: 12+

Difficulty level: advanced

Conditions/Format: group activity and single activity

Material: smartphone or computer of participants

Preparation: -

Description:

Phase 1: Our profound news sources

Participants exchange their experiences in using profound sources. Which do
they use in social media? Which websites do they visit on a regular basis? Are
there new sources?

Phase 2: Check your social media

Participant look through their social media and bookmarks in browsers to check
and adapt to previous discussion. This helps to understand the problem of
information bias and also to learn other sources for information of the other
participants.

Tips for Trainers:

● The trainer could use this exercise on a regular basis and maybe make a
ritual out of it. “Check your sources day”

Questions for debriefing: none.

Tags #sources #socialmedia

4.1.69. My filter bubble update

Partner: ÖIAT

Source: ÖIAT

Objective:
• To evaluate one’s own filter bubble. How much diversity is still present?
• Evaluate every few months

Duration: 10-30 min

Number of participants: 1-10

Age: 12+ with participants who have changed their habits and have adapted
their social media usage in order to gain more diversity.

Difficulty level: advanced

Conditions/Format: group activity and individual exercise

Material: smartphone of participants. Participants need access to their social
media profiles.

Preparation: -

Description:

Phase 1 – participants reflect together with the trainer, what they did in order to
gain more diversity in their filter bubble. They exchange their experiences, they
reflect on what has worked especially well and what was not so successful.

Phase 2 – adapt social media bubble. Participants adapt their social media
activities, according to their personal experiences, but also to ideas they get
from other participants. (For example: Follow other users, delete old sources,
think about shared postings with highly emotional content, etc.)

Tips for Trainers:

● The trainer could join as a participant and do the same as young people.
So everyone learns from each other.

Questions for debriefing: -

Tags #filterbubble #socialnetworks

4.1.70. Report fake news

Partner: ÖIAT

Source: ÖIAT

Objective:
• Rate the reporting mechanism of social networks
• Discuss reporting experiences of participants

Duration: 1 week

Number of participants: 5-30

Age: 12+

Difficulty level: advanced

Conditions/Format: group activity and individual exercise.

Material: participants’ smartphones and access to social media profiles

Preparation: -

Description:
Phase 1 – reflect experiences
Participants have experiences in reporting postings on social networks. In this
first phase they reflect on these experiences. What is working well? What is
changing constantly? Which improvements can be seen? What can be learned
from these experiences?

Phase 2 – teach others

Participants prepare a training for other young people, how to report efficiently.
They adapt this to the target group – those peers they plan to train.

Tips for Trainers:

● Even if the training is not being conducted, it is a good thing to plan it and
to use their own experiences.

Questions for debriefing: -

Tags #report #train #socialnetworks

4.1.71. Yes, I can!

Partner: Jonathan Cooperativa Sociale

Source: Jonathan Cooperativa Sociale

Objective:
- make participants aware of their online behavior, their way of handling online
information and enhance their decision making;
- make participants aware of their digital well-being and encourage them to
increase it;
- make participants take responsibility in changing their online habits of handling
online information and motivate them in this process.

Duration: 1,5h

Number of participants: about 25

Age: +13/14

Difficulty level: easy

Preparation: print as many forms (on the following page) as the number of
participants

Material: pens, paper and printed forms

Description: participants are asked to fill out the form. After that, they are
invited to share in small groups what they have stated and ‘evaluate’ and
welcome suggestions from peers integrating them into the form.

Tips for Trainers:

● It can be more efficient to set up smaller groups (3 or 4 people each) in
order to make each participant express his/her own objectives, feelings,
strategies, etc.
● It can be used as conclusion of a whole training to set a starting point for
the process of changing habits.

Questions for debriefing:

● What are your objectives?
● What is the most difficult change for you?
● What are the strategies?
● Is there a strategy suggested by your friend which you have integrated in
your plan?
● Did you also think about a time frame to start working on it?
● Is there anybody who thinks she/he won’t achieve it or achieve it
partially?

Tags: #habits #decisiontochange #identify

4.2. Combining exercises in different time slots
In this section you will receive a set of tools, games and methodologies that
youth workers can use in their daily work to support young people develop skills
to counteract fake news. Depending on how much time there is to work with
young people, different exercises are useful to reach different goals. The more
time you have, the deeper you can go into the subject, but there are also some
effective exercises for just a few hours.

The following chapters are divided into sessions of (up to) two hours, a half day-
session, activities for a whole day and activities for a week (and longer). Those
exercises should give ideas to youth workers, mentors and teachers for different
training settings, whenever they feel the necessity to raise adolescents’
awareness about fake news and fostering their media literacy.

4.2.1. A two-hour session

Duration Content Used Material Kind of Activity

15’ The group should try to Exercise 4.1.38 - Warm up quiz

identify, if the pictures https://www.thought
shown are real or fake; let co.com/can-you-
them discuss for every spot-the-hoaxes-
picture and also ask, why 4099583
they think something is
true or not

30’ brainstorming on the The questions are brainstorming,

questions: made up for this get to know
- you want to buy a exercise as an different kinds
new smartphone, example (not in the of information
where would you Training Material). sources and
inform yourself You can create your media
about models, own questions.
specifications, …
- your star is going to
be in town, where
would you inform
yourself, what s/he
did the last two
weeks
- you have a
headache and want
to get rid of it -
whom would you ask
for information?
- you have only a few
days until a
 presentation (e.g. in
school), where
would you search for
quick information?
Discuss the different forms
of information and divide
into three sections:
- relatives, friends,
people who help
you, without doing it
as a job
- people whose job it
is to give
information (doctors,
teachers, but also
salespeople)
- every form of media
Discuss which of these
information sources is
reliable and why (think
about advertising too).

45’ explain what a hoax Exercise 4.1.3 - get to know

factory is and what their Trace the evil where fake
products are. Select one news come
article and try to trace it. from and how
Search for pictures and to trace them
content, where it has been
spread online.

30’ Fake news quiz FAKE OFF app strengthen the

knowledge
about fake
news

Every little step helps! In a two-hour session you can spark some ideas and
interest in the topic of fake news. One of the easiest exercises to pull off is 4.1.1
- Find and report misleading accounts. All you need is access to social media
platforms and young people start to search through their timelines. They get to
know the report function within the respective network and discuss why they
report accounts. This can also be done in less than two hours, depending on how
many accounts they find.

For a bit more experienced and maybe older teenagers we have exercises like
4.1.9 - Let’s become fake authors!, where young people write their own fake
news stories or change existing real stories into fake ones. After that you can
discuss, what is easy and what is hard creating fake news and how fake news
should be done so that they stay believable.
4.2.2. A half-day session

Duration Content Used material Kind of Activity

15’ brainstorm what people brainstorming

know about bias, what
they think bias means and
what they think their
biases are

60’ before judging media and Exercise 4.1.40 - online surveys on

information people should Know your bias the topic of
know their point of view on different bias(es)
different topics; these
online surveys show biases
on different topics (sexual
orientation, race, belief, …)
that help to categorize
news stories

45’ try to find fake news Exercise 4.1.21 - searching the

stories, spot the indicators Spotlighting fake internet, either in
and describe them news groups or alone

15’ Break

45’ Participants get a few Exercise 4.1.41 - group or solo

prototypical jobs and Professions activity, drawing
choose a few; they will
then draw people in these
professions. Give them
time to think about the
details, they should draw
them big enough so that
the details can be spotted
easily. After the
presentation of the
pictures ask why they
drew the pictures like this
and see if you can spot
some stereotypes (male
politicians, female
secretaries, foreign
harvest helpers, what
sports do the sports
people perform?, …)

45’ Fake News quiz FAKE OFF app quiz

(up to) Either solo or as a group Exercise 4.1.2 - group or solo

120’ the participants search find and report activity, social
 different social media misleading media
networks for fake news accounts
stories and channels; can
be done as a challenge -
how many can you find?
The found channels get
reported via the reporting
tools provided

For a half day session you could combine sessions regarding your bias like
4.1.40 - Know your bias! and look on social media for biased news with 4.1.21 -
Spotlighting fake news. As soon as your participants know that bias exists and it
can lead to fake news they can spot them and point out what is wrong.

4.2.3. A day activity

Duration Content Used material Kind of Activity

120’ participants form groups Exercise 4.1.30 - group activity,

and act out different Fake news about needs space for
scenarios something around an exhibit
me

30’ Break

150’ discussion about following Exercise 4.1.31 - building

influencers on the internet; Youtube for a day awareness about
participants should shoot a influencers
video about a topic that
they are very interested in
and publish it on the
internet.
Discussion: what did they
do get attention? Did they
exaggerate / distort /
manipulate content?

60’ Break

240’ participants have to Exercise 4.1.44 - building

imagine how their life One day awareness how
would be without completely life changed and
smartphones / the different how digital media
internet. Discussion about changes everyday
how life changed in the life
past 20 years and a brief
 idea on how it may change
in the next 20 years.

4.2.4. A fake news week

If you have a whole week, you can start either combining smaller sessions or try
to go deeper and change behaviour. An easy exercise is 4.1.62 - Media Diary.
The participants should list all their media consumption in a small diary with
different parameters like what they consumed, for how long, why they did it and
how they felt. After about a week they compare how long they have consumed
media and what are the differences between them.

One exercise, where it is important to have young people participate voluntarily

is 4.1.45 - One day completely different - 2: the challenge. How important is
new media and the internet in our daily life? And how long and how well can we
manage our daily life without them? This can be done from one day up to a
whole week and longer, it is very important to debrief this exercise very well
with questions to what has changed and how could young people change their
behaviour in general.

4.3. Working with the FAKE OFF! app

The aim of the FAKE OFF! app is to be used in your training setting in school or
youth work. The app consists of an introductory video tutorial and two games:
Fake OFF Quiz and Fake OFF Detective. With this app you can deepen your
knowledge of the topic, learn how to detect fake news and train your ability to
spot fake news. The app is available for free download on Google Play59.

Below are four different scenarios on how to use the app in a school and non-
school settings. The list is not exhaustive and the aim here is to give you an idea
how you can embed the Fake OFF app in the learning process.

4.3.1. We defend ourselves against fake news (1 hour)

School activity with 13-year-old pupils

Duration Content Used material Kind of activity

10’ The group should discuss document the Brainstorming

where (social media, results on activity

59
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.fakeoff
 internet, newspaper, TV blackboard,
etc.) we are we confronted whiteboard,
with fake news and what flipchart, paper,
kind of information is online-tool….
affected (health tips, sport
tips, politics, etc.). The
results are collected on a
board or paper and should
create a big list all
together.

15’ The pupils play the Fake- app on pupils’ Game or plenary
News game on their digital tool or on session
devices or on the big the screen as a
screen: how to detect fake plenary session
news

5’ The pupils are divided in flipchart, paper, Group work (e.g.)

groups. Every group pens according to
should think about how pupils’ choices in
they can protect the brainstorming
themselves against fake session (YouTube
news. group, instagram
group…):

10’ Every group presents their collect results on Present group

ideas on how to protect blackboard, results
myself against fake news. whiteboard,
All ideas should be flipchart, paper,
collected and written down online-tool….
on a board.

5’ At the end everyone homework Each person

should create their own writes and designs
private plan: “how do I his/her personal
defend myself” list: What will I do
to defend myself
against fake news

4.3.2. Our school gets immune against fake news (1

month)

School project with 14-year-old pupils

Duration Content Used material Kind of activity

1h Trace the evil. How hoax see exercise 4.1.3 Get information
factories work.
2h The pupils should prepare FAKE OFF! App Preparation of
a training themselves for training
younger pupils of their
school to teach them
about fake news by using
the fake off app. The
pupils should be teachers
themselves and try to
explain the topic fake news
to younger ones.

2h The pupils conduct the Classroom and Conduction of

training in a younger class. younger pupils, training for 14-
accompanying year-olds
teachers

30 min The pupils reflect the Discussion

training:
● What did the pupils
learn?
● What did we (adults
- facilitator) learn?
In order to fulfill the goal
to make our school
immune against fake
news:
● Who needs to be
trained? (teachers,
pupils, parents…)
● Which additional
measures can be
taken?

20’ Pupils create a plan to Group work and

reach their goal: plan assembly in
creative and fun activities plenary session,
for other classes, for spread roles and
breaks, an event, posters tasks.
for the school building,
etc. that will persuade the
school and their pupils to
change the behaviour,
when it comes to fake
news.

2-4 The pupils set their plan As designed

Weeks into action.

1h Follow up and finish the Questionnaire

project (6 weeks later) among all
participants to see
whether the learnt
 content is still in
use.

4.3.3. Group challenge (1 hour)

Youth work activity with a stable group

Duration Content Used Kind of activity

material

15’ The participants separate into small FAKE Group game and
groups. They play the quiz of the OFF! competition
FAKE OFF! app in their teams. App

The winning team leads through the

next phase:

20’ Freeze: game on the Enough Outdoor activities

playground/lawn/sport area: space to to collect good
All participants are standing on one move ideas
side of the playing area. The game around
master is on the other side and faces
away and says: “We fight fake news”
then turns around. While he/she is
saying it, all participants try to get
closer. If he/she turns around,
nobody moves. If she/he spots
somebody who moves, this person
has to say a good idea, what can be
done against fake news in kids’ daily
lives. Another person of the winning
team writes down all ideas.

10’ A ball symbolizes fake news. The Enough Outdoor activities

game master passes the ball to a space to to collect good
participant, who has to say move ideas
something that can be done against around,
fake news. It always has to be ball
something new. Another person of
the winning team writes down all
ideas.
10’ The teams from the first round get Paper Collect ideas on
together. They write on a list as and paper in groups
many points, what can be done pens for
against fake news in their daily life. each
Each group has 5 min to write down. team to
write
down
points

The winning team with most ideas

gets a small price.

4.3.4. Fake news rally (1 hour)

Youth work activity with changing participants

Every participant can play this game alone or in groups. All stops are available
the whole time.
Duration Content Used material Kind of activity

1 hour in Make participant use the Posters with QR- Motivation

total app code or digital
devices with the
app installed

Participants play the quiz FAKE OFF! App Each one plays
of the FAKE OFF! App. If with the app on
they get more than 60% their own
of the answers correct,
they go to the next stop

Stop 2: Create your own smartphone, other Create fake news

fake-news. Pupils should devices with
find pictures or articles internet
online and come up with a
fictional story. The best
fake news should win
(maybe win a small
price?).

Stop 3: Fight fake-news flipchart, pen, Collect ideas on

A list is hanging on the markers paper as a group
wall: “I will:...” is the
heading on the flipchart.
Participants should fill up
the list with their own
ideas, how to change their
 daily life in order to defend
themselves against fake
news.

4.4.Testing of the Training Material

In order to ensure the best quality of the exercises available in this training
material, we have collected feedback from trainers/youth workers. This feedback
is presented in this chapter.

4.4.1. General information

The feedback on the exercises was collected over a period of 3 months during
teaching and training units with young people in youth centres or schools in
Italy, Spain, Austria and Portugal. A feedback form was developed, which had to
be filled in afterwards by the trainers/youth workers. The various forms were
then combined to form a complete document, which can be viewed in Chapter
4.4.2.

In total, 21 exercises were carried out in 67 teaching and training units by 22

youth workers/trainers/teachers from Austria, Italy, Portugal and Spain. Some
exercises were carried out multiple times in different settings and countries.
They reached a total of 1206 participants bringing them closer to the topic "fake
news and media literacy".

The feedback of the youth workers/trainers/teachers was incorporated in the

Training Material, so that other users can benefit from the experience and
lessons learnt of youth workers/teacher/trainers involved in the pilot phase.

4.4.2. Feedback to the exercises

Performed Individual Number engage Aspects of improvement Overall What is the
Exercises modification to of ment (e.g. time needed, satisfact probability
the exercises by particip level of preparation, age range ion that you will
the educators ants particip appropriateness …) 1= perform the
ants very tested
1= good exercise
super 5= again?
low very 1= low
5= bad 5= very
very high
high

4.1.1. At the beginning I 15 3 It is important to observe 2 4

Warm up added some other if there are group
quiz questions not dynamics where some
specifically about mates follow the others
the topic but instead of thinking by
more general themselves to the
ones to break the answer, especially with
ice. the younger ones.
More time could be
needed for bigger
groups.

4.1.7. Pass I would include 5 5 - 1 5

the ball, more physical
pass the movements (like
fake! warm up) while
doing the activity

4.1.7. Pass 21 5 1 5
the ball,
pass the
fake!

4.1.7. Pass 1’ phase in 48 5 30 minutes are 2 5

the ball, silence (30+18 necessary;
pass the 2’ phase they can ) It is adequate for an
fake! speak (already) united group;
No age limit

4.1.7. Pass 18 4 Preparation of 1 5

the ball, participants for the
pass the activity
fake!

4.1.7. Pass The exercise was 18 3 In this first exercise it 2 4

the ball, not changed, it went as planned.
pass the was performed Depending on the topic
fake! outside the students need more time
classroom to think

4.1.7. Pass We asked to give 48 4 They have been adequate 2 4

the ball, a description as (30+18 both in terms of modes
pass the detailed as ) and time
fake! possible
4.1.10. - 15 5 The time. It is very 2 2
Where is complicate to do de
my truth? activity following the Being a
suggested time, because concept easy
it depends on the interest to
of the group. understand,
the learners
lose their
interest easily

4.1.10. 28 5 Given the little 1 5

Where is complexity of the
my truth? exercises, there are no
aspects to improve.

4.1.10. 39 5 Difficulty of younger 1 5

Where is (22+17 students (9th grade) in
my truth? ) memorizing sentence
sequence.

4.1.10. I changed the 23 5 1 5

Where is dynamics so that
my truth? students would
apply content
directly, so that
the work would
come naturally
integrated into
the class.

4.1.10. (With each class) 28+28= 4 It can be done also with 1 5

Where is we had to create 56 total the younger ones but
my truth 2 small groups with adequate adaptions
with in time and
debriefing (questions)

4.1.10. Because of the 56 4 For participants older 1 5

Where is high number of (2x28) than 16 when the
my truth participants, we educator function as
created 2 groups ‘original source’, he/she
should find appealing
stories or sentences

4.1.12 Tell - 15 5 It is also interesting to do 1 5

me what it with people that do not
you did know to each other and
last analyses what strategy
week they use to outsmart the
false elements during the
debriefing

4.1.12 Tell 28 5 Given the little 1 5

me what complexity of the
you did exercises, there are no
last aspects to improve.
weekend.
4.1.12 Tell - 26 2 - 1 5
me what
you did
last
weekend

4.1.12 Tell 21 5 1 5
me what
you did
last
weekend.

4.1.14. No modifications 48 3 Example of news with 2 5

Motives (30+18 particular missing
behind ) elements, with more
fake news defects in the form or
contents are necessary.

4.1.15 Every small group 15 4 More time was needed 1 5

Detecting presents the also for the debriefing.
Fake News analysis of the
news on a poster

4.1.17. We asked the 48 5 20 minutes are not 2 5

The way reason of that (30+18 enough ; by trying all
we (re) act choice (in case of ) possible reactions more
online minority dynamics emerge by the
group

4.1.17. - 48 5 The participants showed 2 5

The way (30+18 to be attentive users and
we (re) act ) capable users. They
online demonstrated to have
sources and means to
face situations and
Sunderland them.
*just in some cases the
reactions did not take
into consideration the
emerged consequences

4.1.18. It is also possible 5 5 I don’t think it needs 1 5

The way to use this further improvements.
we (re)act activity with Very good activity!
online – smaller groups
Emoji (e.g. 5 people)
Cards

4.1.18 The - 15 5 - 1 5
way we
(re)act
online –
Emoji
Cards

4.1.19. - 10 5 I would add mote time, 1 5

8Ps Puzzle so it is possible to
encourage more debate
once the puzzle is made.
I mean, more time to
discuss the concepts of
 the puzzle.

4.1.20 - 15 5 The number of 2 3

What is participants in the
what? activity (15) was a lot. It
Matching makes that only the most
the mis- competitive participate,
and so they take over the
disinforma majority of puzzles
tion types (matches). At the same
time, the least
competitive participants
are set aside, and they
become only observers.
In addition, the time that
the activity takes
depends on the level of
difficulty.

4.1.30. We made a half 23 5 Not all the kids liked 1-2 5

Fake News day-session out of acting, but they all tried
About Me the exercise, to participate. For the
because the kids more outgoing kids, this
wanted to really was a possibility to show
develop the story what they got.

4.1.33. 39 3 3 3
Chinese 22+17
Whispers

4.1.34. - 48 5 Every aspect was 1 4

From a (30+18 adequate.
detail )

4.1.35. I didn’t change 14 4 This exercise worked fine 1 5

Chinese anything for me, I wouldn’t change
Drawings anything.

4.1.35. I chose my own 18 5 As my kids were quite 1 5

Chinese drawings, young in this exercise,
Drawings because my kids the ‘no asking’-rule was
were younger. hard for them. They also
Not so many wanted to make the
details. drawings more beautiful
and needed a bit more
time. I think this is a
great exercise for young
kids!

4.1.37. It worked well 10 5 I think it worked well 1 4

FAKE
NEWS
Bingo
4.1.37. I didn’t change 20 4 Some of the kids do not 2 4
Fake News anything use the internet that
Bingo much and didn’t know,
what was meant. I had to
tell them a few more
examples, but after that
they were very involved.
Time was an issue, some
were done within 3
minutes, others needed
more time

4.1.37 we tried it 14 4-5 I didn’t think about data, 1 5

FAKE outdoors, but not but some didn’t have
NEWS all the kids had data left. As they were
Bingo data left; I set up encouraged to search
a WiFi hotspot for pictures/videos too, they
them told me, they didn’t want
to use their data plan, so
I set up a WiFi. Would
have been better in a
closed environment,
where there is a WiFi. I
also had two kids aged
11 and 12, they didn’t
have social media
accounts. For the older
ones the exercise was
very appropriate.

4.1.38 I didn’t change 14 3-4 Would do it with smaller 2 4

Real or anything groups. In bigger groups
fake? there are always people
that disappear in such
exercises.

4.1.38 nothing changed 25 some 5, I would give the link out 2 5

Real or but also to the kids so that they
fake? some 1- can see the pictures on
2; in their own devices – our
bigger projector was not that
groups good to see details.
this is
unavoid
able

4.1.38 We prepared and 30 5 Some technical issues in 1 5

Real or used the Kahoot the training room.
fake? version (as
suggested in the
activity)

https://create.kah
oot.it/share/fakep
ics-game-fake-
off/c3ecd070-
a70b-44ab-bcd7-
87d22e4e823c

some additional
presentations
were created: a)
more detailed
session outline, b)
a presentation
with answers, and
c) a slide with the
types of fake
news and the
 reasons behind
them

4.1.41. Instead of 10 5 For older young people, it 1 5

Profession drawing, it can be is possible to include
s also a brainstorm more deep and complex
(“words-storm”) debriefing questions

4.1.48. Standing in circle 20 4 Shorter sentence 2 4

Collect
ideas
against
fake news

4.1.48. The organization 27 4 In Preparation I would 3 4

Collect of the participants recommend showing the
ideas was not in circle, group an image, a tweet
against they were seated or a news to exemplify
fake news forming an arch the actions needed to
collect ideas.

4.1.51. - 15 5 It is necessary to have 2 5

Online depth some technical
behavior elements like privacy,
change settings etc. Especially if
participants are
newcomers on social
Platform.

4.1.53. 15 5 It was necessary to give 1 5

Replacing - more space for the
bad habits reflection sharing on
behaviors, specially not
doing step 2 as
suggested.

4.1.62. Nothing 12 3-4 It would be easier, if the 2 4

Media (9 group was more
diary finishin coherent. My group was
g) quite diverse in age and
so some dropped out.
Some had it easier
(especially the older
ones), for kids below 13
years of age it was very
difficult.
4.1.62. nothing changed 8 Very I thought, it was a great 1 5
Media high! 5 exercise, nothing to add.
diary They all
wanted
to note
very
rigorous
ly what
they
consum
ed and
also
changed
their
media
consum
ption in
that
time.

4.1.64. We adapted the 56 4 Can be necessary to work 1 5

You better activity touching (2x28) in small groups (couple)
think the topic of if the context requests
gender (n. of participants,
stereotypes in the shyness)
job areas

4.1.64. Posts have been 56 4 With high number of 1 5

You better selected to work (2x28) participants or with
think on stereotypes participants with
particular characteristics
is better to make them
work in couple

4.1.65. - 48 5 The activity seemed to be 2 5

Spotting (30+18 complex for some
fake news ) participants but with
adequate explication all
doubts have been solved

Additional comments

● In general, I would add to the set of activities some exercises that need
few preparations and few materials. By doing so, it is possible to
implement the activities in an easier way, and they can be more adaptable
to multiple contexts.
● The first activity 4.1.18. The way we (re)act online – Emoji Cards] was
very interesting and adequate for the youth field, as well as the second
activity [4.1.19. 8Ps Puzzle]. The content is very useful and appropriate
for young people. They quite like it.
● For 4.1.38 Real or fake? activity, some additional presentations were
created: a) more detailed session outline, b) a presentation with answers,
and c) a slide with the types of fake news and the reasons behind them.
They are available if someone wants to play the game]
● 4.1.7. Pass the ball, pass the fake! Students have adhered well to the
activity, but have difficulty talking about them and giving personal
information that is not correct (false).
4.4.3. Overall Evaluation

The youth workers/trainers/teachers were also asked to evaluate the general

satisfaction of the exercise, in particular:

● Engagement level of the participants

● Possibility that they will perform the exercise again
● Overall satisfaction

The rating of all exercises performed, including those tested several times by
different youth workers/trainers/teachers, are presented in the table below:

Rating scale Average score result

Engagement level of 1 = super low; 5 = very 3,86

participants high

Future implementation of the 1 = low; 5 = very high 4,09

exercise

Overall satisfaction 1 = very good; 5 = very 1,31

bad

As the table shows, the overall feedback is rather positive.

4.4.4. Profile of the respondents

Occupation:

Youth worker 8

Teacher 8

EU Project Coordinator 1
Educator 3

Project management + educator 1

How long has the person questioned been working as a youth worker/trainer/teacher?

0-5 years 9 persons 1 year

1,5 years
2 years
2 years
2 years
3 years
3 years
4 years
5 years

6-10 years 3 persons 6 years

9 years
10 years

11-15 years 1 person 12 years

16-20 2 persons 16 years

20 years

over 20 years 7 persons 22 years

26 years
29 years
29 years
30 years
33 years
34 years

The arithmetic mean of these values is an average working experience of 13,61 years.
Usual age range of the children the youth workers/trainers/teacher work with:
Usual context of their youth work (they could choose more than one option):

In class during school 13

With students after school 9

Youth center 9

Others (please specify) 3

● events
● birthday party arrangements, outdoor youth work in
public places
● school classes that come to our place
Annex 1. Further reading

As a start – Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Media_literacy
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fake_news

Jooyeun Park on media literacy, media competence and media policy

https://huichawaii.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/Park-Jooyeun-2017-AHSE-
HUIC.pdf

Claire Wardle on Fake News and mis-/disinformation

https://firstdraftnews.org/infodisorder-definitional-toolbox/
https://firstdraftnews.org/10-questions-newsrooms/
https://firstdraftnews.org/fake-news-complicated/
https://rm.coe.int/information-disorder-toward-an-interdisciplinary-framework-
for-researc/168076277c

Regina Marchi on Fake News and objectivity

https://eclass.uoa.gr/modules/document/file.php/MEDIA279/Social%20Media/Wi
th%20Facebook,%20Blogs,%20and%20Fake%20News,%20Teens%20Reject%2
0Journalistic%20%E2%80%9CObjectivity%E2%80%9D.pdf

For specific hoaxes

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Protocols_of_the_Elders_of_Zion
http://www.fschuppisser.ch/storepdf/hageprot.pdf
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stone_louse
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Yes_Men
http://www.theyesmen.org
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiji_mermaid

Other Media
Spot the Fake News:
https://www.channelone.com/feature/quiz-can-you-spot-the-fake-news-story/
Do Not Track: https://donottrack-doc.com/en/
Orwell, George: 1984.
Annex 2. Template for the exercises

Title:

Partner:

Source:

Objective:

Duration:

Number of participants:

Age:

Difficulty level: + easy, ++ average, +++ advanced

Conditions/Format: group activity, individual exercise, home task, pair exercise.

Material:

Preparation:

Description:

Tips for Trainers:

Questions for debriefing:

Steps (select where it belongs): 1 - Strengthen information literacy, 2 - Create

new habits, 3 - Apply new habits in daily life

Tags (e.g. #fakenews, #changethehabits, #medialiteracy)

Annex 3. Info about the Fake OFF project
The learning material has been developed within the Erasmus+ project "FAKE
OFF - Fostering Adolescents’ Knowledge and Empowerment in Outsmarting Fake
Facts”.

The project aims at fostering young people’s Internet literacy, creating

awareness of intentional misinformation, enabling young people to identify “fake
news” and to avoid them.

Goals and Impact of the project:

● increase the participation of young people in the critical debate of news
and Internet content
● develop young people’s capacity to evaluate published information and act
accordingly
● allow a systematic approach to digital literacy for young people and
professionals working with them
● more responsible use of online media by young people
● public discourse about the accuracy and quality of news
● awareness of media education in the context of fake news in youth
organisations
● make young people less susceptible to intentional misinformation and
propaganda
● empowerment of young people with the skills of critical thinking and
media literacy
● better informed younger generation and stronger fundament for
democracy
● a higher competence regarding digital forms of teaching by youth workers

The consortium of this project consists of seven partners in five countries,

ranging from educational institutions, youth workers and youth organisations to
digital media experts, youth information centres and ICT experts: bit
schulungscenter GmbH (AT), Future Balloons (PT), Internationale Akademie
Berlin für Innovative Pädagogik, Psychologie und Ökonomie (DE), Asociacion
Intercultural Europea Go Europe (ES), Jonathan Cooperativa Sociale (IT),
Österreichisches Institut für angewandte Telekommunikation (AT) and LOGO
jugendmanagement Gmbh (AT). In addition, various associated partners -
ranging from authorities, youth work umbrella organisations, youth
organisations, schools, media, academic institutions, etc. - support the project in
the development of outputs, dissemination and multiplier events - to ensure
maximum impact and distribution of the project results.

In addition to the present product (training material), other products have

already been created within this project: a General Didactic Concept and an
APP, which should support youth workers, teachers and trainers in their daily
work.

All products are freely accessible - the GDC can be downloaded free of charge
from the project website (www.fake-off.eu) and the APP can be found and
downloaded free of charge in the Apple Store as well as in the Google Store by
using the search function and entering "Fake Off".

More information about the project can be found under the following link:
www.fake-off.eu
 www.fake-off.eu

Created by
Dr. Tetiana Katsbert (YEPP EUROPE)
Jochen Schell (YEPP EUROPE)
Barbara Buchegger (ÖIAT/Saferinternet.at)
Matthias Jax (ÖIAT/Saferinternet.at)
Thomas Doppelreiter (LOGO jugendmanagement)

Contributions by
Stefano Modestini (GoEurope)
Javier Milán López (GoEurope)
Alice M. Trevelin (Jonathan Cooperativa Sociale)
Dario Cappellaro (Jonathan Cooperativa Sociale)
Marisa Oliveira (Future Balloons)
Vítor Andrade (Future Balloons)
Clara Rodrigues (Future Balloons)
Michael Kvas (bit schulungscenter)
Laura Reutler (bit schulungscenter)
Sarah Kieweg (bit schulungscenter)

Graphic design by
Marcel Fernández Pellicer (GoEurope)

This project has been funded with support from the European Commission.
This publication [communication] reflects only the views of the author. Therefore The Commission cannot be held
responsible for any eventual use of the information contained therein.
Project No. 2017-3-AT02-KA205-001979
 This project has been funded with support from the European Commission.
This publication [communication] reflects only the views of the author. Therefore The Commission cannot be held
responsible for any eventual use of the information contained therein.
Project No. 2017-3-AT02-KA205-001979