A governor’s guide to misinformation and bias
Misinformation is false or inaccurate information and can take the form of a social media post, a real or edited picture, a video clip, a meme or news story. Misinformation can be shared inadvertently without realising that the information is false or inaccurate.
There is an unparalleled opportunity online to exchange and share information and ideas, as well as explore new concepts and learn. Your school learners will come across online content that has the potential to shape their beliefs and opinions, and influence their behaviour. It is important to know how to differentiate between fact and opinion online, and for school staff to provide learners with the opportunities for them to develop critical reasoning skills. They can then use these skills to evaluate the trustworthiness of what they encounter online, as well as the motivations of those who create that content.
This guide:
- explores some of the risks that children and young people face online when seeing false and inaccurate information
- provides information to help you support school staff and safeguard your school’s learners
- helps you fulfil your governance duties as a ‘critical friend’.
Top tips for evaluating online content
Understand and identify misinformation, disinformation and bias
Help your school staff and learners to understand the differences between:
- misinformation – false/inaccurate information
- disinformation – false/inaccurate information deliberately created to deceive, mislead and influence
You may often encounter online content that contains a mixture of both accurate and inaccurate information. Disinformation is at its most powerful when some accurate minor details are included to make it sound more plausible.
- bias – bias in content means that it expresses an opinion or position without taking into account or including any counter argument or evidence to the contrary. The content is therefore unbalanced. Sometimes bias can be easy to spot. On other occasions it can be much more subtle. Either way, bias reflects its creator’s world view and, particularly if strongly expressed, an unwillingness to change regardless of accuracy or evidence to the contrary.
Understanding the harms that misinformation can inflict is important. Imagine you see a post shared on social media making unsubstantiated claims that Covid-19 vaccines are dangerous to your health. If you or a family member decides not to take a vaccine because of that misinformation, you could be putting yourself or others at risk. More often, you might just share the post, which could lead it to being seen by many others. And they too could face the consequences of exposure to that misinformation.
Threats to our safety or health are the most severe forms of harm from misinformation, but they’re not the only possible consequences. Misinformation can be used to scam us out of money and even affect whole businesses. It can interfere with democracy by misleading us as to the choices on offer, or even attempt to stop us from voting properly. Even the misinformation or spin we see day-to-day in politics can put us off engaging altogether, fueling apathy or distrust in politics and institutions.
Children and young people access news through a range of online sources including social media and websites. Some of the news they encounter could be considered misinformation – untrue stories or reports about people, organisations and places. Depending on the story’s subject, and its timing and level of interest, misinformation can rapidly spread and go viral.
Discussing together the things learners have seen and/or heard online is an opportunity for them to hear their peers’ opinions and to ask questions. Exploring whether popular online content (such as viral stories or content from celebrities or social media influencers) is more trustworthy than other content can be an effective way of encouraging learners to reflect on the reliability of what they experience online.
School staff can also work with learners to fact-check stories and claims (websites like fullfact.org and snopes.com can be helpful for this), address misconceptions, and educate them on key critical thinking skills and how and where to find reliable information online and offline.
Consider motives
Encourage school staff and learners to question what has motivated someone to share information online. Questioning the reputation and trustworthiness of the source is always a good starting point, as well as what they might stand to gain from sharing information. For example, exaggerated headlines could be used as ‘clickbait’ designed to attract attention and draw users to a website that then profits financially from increased advertising revenue.
Learners can be helped to recognise that media sources may also have their own agendas for sharing news stories or other information. Although the details in a story may be factually accurate, the source may express an opinion or bias alongside these details in an attempt to influence the opinions of others. Biases could be political, financial, religious or moral, and reflect the opinion of an individual or a whole organisation.
It is important for learners to be aware that not all inaccurate information is shared with malicious intentions. People make genuine mistakes and are sometimes naïve about the true nature of the content they are sharing.
Explain the risks
The internet offers great opportunities for learners to explore different aspects of their lives and the world around them and many different perspectives too. However, they should be made aware that misinformation and biased information can pose risks to their health, well-being and safety, as well as that of others. They could encounter content that can influence beliefs, possibly leading to negative or prejudiced behaviour towards others who don’t share those beliefs. They may also encounter content that encourages risky or dangerous behaviours, including misleading or inaccurate advice around health and lifestyle.
Teach and encourage critical reasoning
The most effective way to protect learners from risks posed by biased or misleading online information is to help them develop the skills they need to critically evaluate information and then make positive and responsible choices.
School staff should teach strategies for authenticating online information. These could include checking a range of online sources and websites, using trusted fact checking sites, verifying information through offline sources, and seeking the help and/or opinions of others.
Where appropriate, they should encourage to explore different viewpoints to those they have encountered online. Experiencing different perspectives can enable them to gain a more balanced view and gather more information to help them decide their own views on a topic or issue.
They should empower learners to take positive action when they see misleading information online. This can be done by discussing ways they can positively challenge another person’s views, and help them understand how they can report misleading or harmful content shared on the services they use.
Help and further information
A misinformation training module is available for education practitioners, which aims to give them a breadth of knowledge about how to tackle misinformation and support learners to effectively check sources of information and think critically about claims.
You’ll find more information on supporting school staff and learners to understand misinformation online on the misinformation page on Keeping safe online on Hwb. A short video about misinformation is also available.
For more information on how to keep learners safe online, visit Keeping safe online which has a wide range of bilingual online safety resources.
If you need support as a professionals working with children and young people contact the Professionals Online Safety Helpline (POSH) on 0844 381 4772 or e-mail helpline@saferinternet.org.uk.