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Opinion Teaching children digital literacy is a must if we are to combat misinformation

Emma DeSouza says children and the wider community must be taught the required skills to navigate a digital world.

TÁNAISTE LEO VARADKAR recently stated that Irish politics is becoming more polarised with social media facilitating one side of a story becoming “accepted fact within hours” but is social media really to blame?

Or is it how we use these platforms that matter? With the current acrimony in Irish politics, often expressed via social media, you’d almost think Ireland was hurtling towards an election.

What is becoming clear is that political parties are increasingly utilising media, and advances in technology, to attack the opposition. We’ve already seen how damaging these tactics can be for politics in America.

I believe the tool to counter it is embedding digital literacy skills to our education system and society. The term ‘literacy’ is most often associated with the ability to read and write. ‘Digital literacy’, however, is the ability to navigate the ever-growing technology-based society which we live in.

It refers not only to the ability to type, utilise software, and scour the internet, but also includes recognising the nuances and pitfalls of social media, and importantly, being able to use critical thinking to scrutinise the quality and authenticity of digital media.

In a time of ‘deepfakes’ and ‘fake news’, discerning whether a piece of information is from a reputable source has become hugely significant. The media that we consume has a profound effect on our daily lives – from deciding how we may choose to cast our ballot during an election, to making important healthcare decisions during a global pandemic. Digital literacy is a deceptively necessary firewall in a ‘post-truth’ world.

Smoke and mirrors

The doctoring photos and videos is nothing new – Adobe Photoshop, for example, has been around for decades but advances in technology continue to push the boundaries of video and image manipulation, and in turn, blur the boundaries between what’s real and what’s not.

There are many who pride themselves on being able to identify when something ‘looks shopped’, often sighting pixel imperfections, or having seen several ‘shops’ in their time. This ability to scrutinise digital content has slowly become more and more commonplace, and for a time, digital image trickery appeared to have plateaued. Then came the ‘deepfakes’.

Deepfake technology can create sometimes startlingly convincing yet entirely fictional photos, videos, and even audio almost from scratch.

Specialised software is used which harnesses the power of AI-generated tech, machine learning, and deep learning to build off of pre-existing source material with the result being a new piece of media which appears to be one thing when it’s something else entirely.

shutterstock_1658328688(2) Shutterstock / Tenebroso Shutterstock / Tenebroso / Tenebroso

Well, maybe not “entirely”. Have you seen Tom Cruise’s 2020 presidential campaign announcement? Or the video of Mark Zuckerberg boasting of how the platform ‘owns’ its users? Then you’ve seen a deepfake.

Deepfakes emerged in 2017 and are becoming increasingly more convincing and more prevalent, and all they require are abundant pools of source material to draw from. In an age where almost everyone with an internet connection has countless photographs of themselves from every conceivable angle, this new tech won’t always be reserved for politicians and actors.

So how do you know if something you’ve seen is deepfaked? There are a couple of indicators, such as facial discolourations, unnatural lighting, and audio being out of sync, however, none of these is a guarantee for spotting one. As the deepfake technology becomes increasingly more sophisticated, spotting these tells will become steadily more difficult, which is why digital literacy is so important.

Digital literacy for children

Critical thinking is a crucial skill in media and information literacy – being able to evaluate information and arguments, identify patterns, and form educated viewpoints can all prove to be invaluable tools.

There are inherent risks in the digital age, with children increasingly accessing the internet with ease at younger ages with fewer restrictions as to which content they should be able to access. 

We have a generation growing up more connected than ever before, which can have tremendous potential benefits, but there are no assurances that many of these children are adhering to safe internet practices, nor learning the necessary tricks to become adept at identifying dangerous misinformation.

In many ways, the forthcoming generations are more vulnerable than anyone to the malicious side of the deepfake phenomenon. A desire to ensure children are not only able to navigate technology but know how to do so safely has lead to calls for digital literacy to become the fourth pillar of education alongside reading, writing and maths.

Minister Simon Harris TD, during his address at the OECD’s Skills Summit this year, spoke of a need for increased digital literacy, which was identified as a priority by Ireland’s National Skills Council.

A gap in digital literacy is in no way exclusive to children or young people of course – in a report from Accenture, 42% of those surveyed rated their digital skills as ‘average’ or below.

The report also suggested that the gap in digital literacy is likely to widen further as a result of the Covid-19 restrictions, with more people relying on technology for shopping and working from home.

Research also shows that older people are more susceptible to misinformation. That, in itself, can have a seismic social effect. For example, adults aged 65 or older voted at a higher rate than any other age demographic in the 2016 US election, suggesting that those most vulnerable to misinformation, are the group that voted the most.

A perhaps telling development, given that the term ‘fake news’ dominated Donald Trump’s one-term presidency. In simple terms, fake news is essentially false information presented as fact.

The dangers of misinformation

Misinformation can be dangerous, many will have met a climate denier, or more recently, someone who perceives the global pandemic sweeping the globe as a ‘staged event’- they aren’t consuming this nonsense from a reputable source or site, but rather genuinely believe it to be true.

And therein lies one of the many dangers of misinformation. The term is also used to undermine genuine facts – another tactic favoured by the Trump administration, as well as evidenced by the 2016 Brexit referendum. In many ways, watching both the US and the UK almost simultaneously succumb to such duplicitous tactics, it was as if the two worked in tandem.

Several countries are successfully tackling the rise in misinformation through the education system. Finland – recently rated Europe’s most resistant nation to fake news – teaches digital literacy in primary schools.

The curriculum is part of a unique, broad strategy devised by the Finnish government in 2014 to counter media manipulation. Since 2016, multi-platform information literacy and strong critical thinking have become a core, cross-subject component of the national curriculum.

The term ‘post-truth’ was announced as the Oxford Dictionary word of the year in 2016. Since then, it has become ingrained in political and social commentary. If we are living in a ‘post-truth’, ‘post-fact’, ‘fake news’ era, with these terms and tools becoming more prevalent in politics then investing in digital literacy will likely become more necessity than aspiration.

Emma DeSouza is a citizens rights campaigner for the Good Friday Agreement and is Vice-Chair & NI spokesperson for VotingRights.ie. She recently successfully challenged the Home Office to assert her right to identify as Irish.

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    Mute One Human Being
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    Oct 23rd 2014, 12:43 PM

    Now if only he could reduce the administration staff and increase frontline staff then we might go towards fixing some of the issues within the Irish healthcare system.

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    Mute David Burke
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    Oct 23rd 2014, 1:04 PM

    Everyone likes the sound of that but it’s often madness.

    Medical treatment requires admin so appointments get scheduled and the right leg gets chopped off.

    You get rid of the admin staff and the paperwork doesn’t go away. So instead of €30,000 a year clerical worker doing the paperwork you have a an experienced highly qualified senior pediatric nurse earning €70,000 doing the paperwork.

    Blanket calls to get rid of admin staff don’t make sense. Bloods still need to go to the labs, results collected, patient files put together and then filed. Who does that work if you get rid of admin staff.

    Health systems are complicated and it’s universal setup. For every soldier on the front line in the US military are there are 3 in logistics, communication, support, intelligence, command etc.

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    Mute Peter M Buchanan
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    Oct 23rd 2014, 1:16 PM

    Everything here of IT ???

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    Mute One Human Being
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    Oct 23rd 2014, 2:29 PM

    I understand the need for some administrative staff but during the amalgamation of the Hse lots of areas where merged thus creating multiple areas with staff doing the same job. While getting two letters to remind you of an appointment is good. The vast wastage is what’s is dragging the health board into overspending each year.

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    Mute Scarr
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    Oct 23rd 2014, 2:30 PM

    Any particular % of admin staff you would like to sack? It’s normally a 50% figure people pick out of their ar$e when they raise this overly simplistic solution to a complex problem.
    Does anyone honestly think that chopping a bunch of admin heads is going to cure health? If you do, you’re a bit of a plonker.

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    Mute Marguerite Hoiby
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    Oct 23rd 2014, 5:05 PM

    what you state here that admin staff do can be achieved with proper IT systems in place.

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    Mute Triona Murphy
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    Oct 23rd 2014, 9:46 PM

    Couldn’t agree more.a careful look at all the grade 8s however…..??

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    Mute Ryan Carroll
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    Oct 23rd 2014, 12:44 PM

    This is the same tinkering around the edges that M Martin took credit for…certain illnesses have gone down….er…ok great…but we were expecting a big set of reforms lads and so in contrast to that your improvements look pretty small.
    Remember the UHI plan? Were the only developed country besides US that does not have universal healthcare. I think even if it was a public insurance option (where people could keep separate private insurance for private hospitals if they wanted) of 400-500 year and then EVERYTHING is covered people would still like that, hell I’d take even the messy inefficient universal private insurance plan over what we have now.
    We don’t even need to do insurance at all. The UK has a centrally funded system so does Canada, why can’t we just do that, phase that in, and leave people to buy private insurance for private hospitals separate if they so choose…everyone happy then.

    But before we do UI we need a minister with the balls to tackle the staff duplication and triplication that came when the HSE was created. The HSE was meant to REPLACE all the health boards but instead they MERGED them. The unions seem to object to even internal transfers. The second cafe in one hospital closed and they wanted to transfer the staff to a cafe at another hospital, but they refused and wanted to stay in the same hospital…so they put them in admin…people with catering experience…in admin…where two of them promptly delayed my cancer diagnoses by 4 weeks. We need to tackle this inefficiency and get UH in place, I wonder how much we’d save towards the extra 4b UH would cost if we got rid of all that surplus staff or even assigned them more efficiently?
    This is one thing that puts me off about politics there are never any bold or innovative ideas it’s all small scale thinking and tinkering.

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    Mute David Burke
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    Oct 23rd 2014, 12:58 PM

    Why not leprechauns ?

    400-500 Euro insurance which covers everything? That doesn’t exist. Wish it did, it doesn’t.

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    Mute Scarr
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    Oct 23rd 2014, 2:33 PM

    Ryan – they’ve looked at the Dutch model of uhi, a system the Dutch are getting rid of; so that’s not a good start.
    The figures for providing uhi, when we were all still talking about it, wouldn’t be far off 3 times the amount you propose in your post.

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    Mute David Burke
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    Oct 23rd 2014, 12:56 PM

    HIQA is a pain in the hole but great. Most places have HIQA reports online. You can look at nursing home or disability centres and see how they do.

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    Mute Kerry Blake
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    Oct 23rd 2014, 12:50 PM

    He would be more believable if he had taken up the nurses offer to do a hospital shift with them. At least some might think he knows what he is talking about.

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    Mute David Burke
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    Oct 23rd 2014, 12:58 PM

    He was a doctor though….

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    Mute significantrisk
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    Oct 23rd 2014, 1:00 PM

    Nonsense. A doctor doing a nursing shift is a liability. Leo served his time on the front lines – showboating and pretending to be a nurse, getting in the way, would only hinder any effort at improving care.

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    Mute Kerry Blake
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    Oct 23rd 2014, 1:31 PM

    It would mean he would experience the conditions the nurses deal with now not when he qualified. No one asked him to be a nurse just observe a bit of a difference .

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    Mute significantrisk
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    Oct 23rd 2014, 1:55 PM

    He’s well aware of the conditions our nursing colleagues work under.

    Play acting at being a nurse wouldn’t change that.

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    Mute Rory Naughton
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    Oct 23rd 2014, 2:06 PM

    I think it should be noted that he worked in medicine for a brief period of time(2 or 3 years?) and, as he mentioned, it was in a different era (pre 2007) in a very different environment. The healthcare system is far more stretched with staff morale far lower now than it was then.
    He also seems to be somewhat economical with the truth.
    For example: there is some dedicated ambulance transfer services but not the way he paints it. So there’s a neonatal service run by the 3 Dublin NICUs. Then there’s a single critical care ambulance which, unless things have changed in the past year, is run 9-5 Mon-Fri again from Dublin. Otherwise little has changed with the hospital losing a doctor/nurse for the duration of the transfer.

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    Mute Zoë Georgina
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    Oct 23rd 2014, 12:46 PM

    Not entirely sure where he’s getting his figures on long-term disabilities…

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    Mute Richard Armstrong
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    Oct 23rd 2014, 3:25 PM

    errr “in patient transfer teams” dont exist – i’ve had to do that

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    Mute edel ryan
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    Oct 23rd 2014, 4:33 PM

    The dogs on the street know the health “service” is a DISGRACE

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    Mute Andrew Halpin
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    Oct 23rd 2014, 11:50 PM

    Yeah he’s got top people formerly of the department of justice helping to run things the new way.

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