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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Another strategy Gordon said they promoted for detecting AI images is focusing on people’s hands, as artificial intelligence doesn鈥檛 have fingers and other small details like teeth figured out. In March, a fake of Trump being arrested circulated online. One of the biggest signs that it was bogus was the hands of Trump and the police officers in the image.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

During the organization鈥檚 summer camp, NYC teens are guided to envision what democracy looks like to them and are taught skills necessary to create it. They learn about the history of American democracy, craft proposals on specific issues they鈥檇 like to tackle and are encouraged to continue what they鈥檝e learned by creating a research project during the school year. Though students don鈥檛 receive extra credit at school, those who participate will qualify for Certificates of Activist Excellence and/or Civic Leadership.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

鈥淣ews and media literacy is a critical skill impacting students’ academic, personal, professional and civic lives,鈥� said Shaelynn Farnsworth, the Project鈥檚 director of educator network expansion. 鈥淵et, unfortunately, our students are inheriting the most complicated information landscape in history and are often duped by what they consume online.鈥�

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

鈥淚nstead of developing healthy skepticism, students read with a cynical eye instead of a critical one, often not believing any information they consume online,鈥� she said. 鈥淭o combat this, educators hone skills, so students know what to believe, who to trust and what to share.鈥�

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

鈥淢eta doesn鈥檛 target any group because of their politics,鈥� a company spokeswoman said. 鈥淎fter reviewing the content associated with this organization, we determined that some was removed correctly for violating our misinformation policies.鈥�

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

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

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

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

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

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

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