Why your mum's Facebook habits matter more than ever
Dr Jo Orlando
PhD Digital Wellbeing Researcher, Keynote Speaker, Author, TV Presenter,
Your mum just shared another questionable Facebook post. But this time, it's different – there's no fact-checker in sight.?Meta's latest move isn't just about social media politics; it's about how misinformation trickles down from parent to child. Here's why that matters...
Facebook Ditches the Fact-Checkers
False, fake, bias political, controversial content- now anything can be posted and there will be no one from Facebook to check and remove it. Instead they've decided we can do this ourselves and let users point out what might be wrong - like what X does with its "community notes."
Now the community notes might sound like a good idea but who's to say that they'll be reliable. The loudest voices, not necessarily the most accurate ones, often dominate such discussions.?
Impact on Kids:?When the Whole Family's Source Is Unreliable
Even though young people mostly use TikTok and Instagram, Facebook is where many parents and grandparents get their news and information. When these family members read unverified information on Facebook, it affects the conversations they have at home and the beliefs they share with their kids. This creates a dangerous information echo chamber in families:
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Unless families make a conscious decision to step away from social media for their news and find reliable sources together, they'll end up in an loop of unreliable information, each generation reinforcing different versions of reality.?
Crunch Time!
Social media literacy isn't just for the kids - it's now a family survival skill. With Facebook ditching professional fact-checkers, we're all being told to "figure it out" without ever learning how. It's like being thrown into the deep end and expected to teach swimming at the same time.?
From parents raised on traditional media to grandparents who switched from newspapers to Facebook, to kids on TikTok - everyone needs these skills. Yet social platforms are making truth-finding harder while claiming to make it easier.
Add AI hallucinations to the mix, and we're facing an even bigger challenge: how do three generations learn to navigate this complex digital landscape when we're all stumbling through the dark together?
?Tip for you and your child
Make an effort to use multiple sources to find out about the world. If you usually go to Facebook or Insta make a concerted effort to consistently branch out to News sources, and other trustworthy platforms.?
Entrepreneur
1 个月The world’s in turmoil as people pick sides between freedom of speech and fact-checking. The flood of misinformation is unlike anything we’ve seen before, and the lack of credible sources leaves room for doubt. For the past three years, Critix Media from Finland, has been building a safe and trustworthy European platform that brings together news and discussions under one roof. Perspectives from over 40 countries and hundreds of media outlets—all in one place, where you can check the source of every story and talk about it securely. Critix gives you the tools to check reliability for yourself. If you're looking for alternatives, repost this and give us a chance! about.critix.ai
Family Digital Wellness | Helping Parents Transform Digital Distraction to Family Connection
1 个月Dr. Jo - Great point on reliable sources of information online for parents to successfully support their kids. In my circles, I haven't seen this topic discussed deeply enough to understand what solutions do or could exist to support parents. In addition to social media, AI will complicate this further with information it provides parents that use those tools. In the US, parents have a lot on their plates already and most are not proficient in navigating the digital world when it comes to finding trustful information so misinformation and that being passed down in how they raise their kids is a problem.
Digital citizenship and threat assessment expert, educator, and author
1 个月This is a strawman argument for fact-checking. You should listen to Mark Zuckerberg's interview with Joe Rogan. The US government was pressuring him to CENSOR speech they didn't agree with. Later, we learned that the speech they censored was actually correct. It's been argued that some of the things censored might have saved lives, at least, there could have been a good-faith discussion about what was the best course of action with regard to treatment or other public health policies. The problem with fact-checking?that you don't mention is that the fact-checkers can (and often have) been wrong or manipulated by the government or some other entity. This is why the confidence in fact-checking has completely eroded. Do people need to be better educated on how to validate information? Sure. The answer to inaccurate or even hateful speech is more speech. The marketplace of ideas is exactly that: a marketplace. Crappy products die on the shelves; good ones are adopted. People should have the choice.
BBC, ITV & Disney Parenting Expert | Broadcaster | Award-Winning Author | Speaker | Consultant | Coach | Host of the Navigating the Digital Jungle Podcast | Empowering Parents to Thrive in the Digital Age ??????
1 个月Really great post Dr Joanne Orlando