Google launches a free program for children to learn to identify false news

On the Internet we can find incredibly great and also disturbing things, and all are within a click. This is a real problem when it comes to letting the little ones in the house connect and use a computer freely.

In 2017, Google launched a program called 'Be Internet Awesome' (in collaboration with Net Safety Collaborative), focused on teaching children to use the Internet in a more secure way.

To be used in classrooms and by families

The company has updated this campaign by adding new lessons on a topic that is topical: to identify if they are facing fake news calls (false news).

Google states that it has created these new six activity packs so that educators can use them in the classroom, and thus teach children how to detect if they are in front of a website with false content.

"We need the right tools and resources to help children get the most out of technology, and although there are good digital security and citizenship resources for families, more can be done for media literacy."

 With this program, the youngest can understand how you can edit images and videos to eliminate part of the context and thus give a vision of what happened completely manipulated.

Be Internet Awesome

Through an entry in his blog, Google has officially announced these new lessons, which are available in Spanish and English. In addition, the company states that they will also be useful outside the classroom:

"All these resources are not only available for the classrooms, but they are also free and easily accessible for families."

In addition to knowing how to identify fake news and how they are created, this course also explains to children how phishing works, why it is a real threat and how they can do it in order to avoid it.

There is also a section dedicated to robots and to teach how artificial intelligence works, teaching to identify if they are talking with a bot or a human being.