Many years ago, disinformation was spread in the immediate social environment, but in the digital age it spreads much more quickly to larger circles. That's why we're all challenged every day to critically engage our minds so that, firstly, we don't get lost in the stream of information and secondly, we recognize what is true and what should urgently go into the conspiracy bin. It is often not easy to keep track of things here.
Perplexed teachers
Mimikama repeatedly receives requests from perplexed teachers asking for help on how they can provide their students with a ray of hope in the deep jungle of certain topics. As great as the digital age is, in which everyone can find out about complex and diverse topics, it is even more difficult to keep track of things due to the many different opinions and conflicting reporting. Premature conclusions are drawn too quickly and these are spread on social networks. Students need to be taken by the hand here so that they don't always immediately accept everything as truth. That's why it's great that the "Digital Heroes" have developed a program for schools that should train exactly these skills.
The danger of disinformation
Disinformation can lead to uncertainty in society and fuel fear and prejudice. Above all, they are deliberately spread throughout society and are increasing every year. This is currently particularly visible in connection with the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine. Accounts run by supporters close to the Kremlin and by Russian state media repeatedly attempt to spread irritating information and misinformation on various platforms. The aim is to stimulate debates in countries such as: B. to negatively influence Germany and divide society.
The problem with war reporting
Every day we are confronted with countless different pieces of information about Putin's war of aggression against Ukraine. At one point it is claimed that NATO was to blame for Putin attacking Ukraine. Others claim that Boris Johnson is stopping the Ukrainian president from peace negotiations because the West is not yet ready for an end to the war. Elsewhere it is conveyed that Putin is unpredictable and has already reneged on many concessions. Or is it that Putin wants to save Russia from possible bioweapons attacks from Ukraine? Now which of these is correct? Who tells the truth? Are Ukrainians actually Nazis? Can anyone really know what is true? Questions upon questions…
The “Digital Heroes” and their project: “Discussing disinformation and war in class”
On the “Digital Heroes” , three research tasks in the area of politics and economics on the Ukrainian war were provided for students and teachers. These three tasks are intended to sensitize students to the area of conspiracy stories. In a very practical way, an explanatory video about the heroes' task is also provided. This makes it particularly easy for teachers to make an extremely good contribution in the area of media literacy and to strengthen their students against disinformation. The target group are students in grades 10-12.
The conspiracy checker
In addition, the “Digital Heroes” present the “Conspiracy Checker” . This portal serves political education work and is intended to be a supplement to the pages of the various fact checkers. For this purpose, questions were developed that can provide information about the probable degree of truth of a statement. At the end, the answers are added together and the result is presented as either fairly certain nonsense or possibly true. On the way to the result, the users are trained on certain clues so that in the future they can find out what is probably a conspiracy story and what is not, even without the conspiracy checker. The portal is a great complementary tool to other teaching materials.
Who are the “digital heroes”?
These true heroes regularly offer free webinars on the topic of the digital world. Their target groups are parents and educators. You can also have direct conversations with students about the topics of bullying, hate, fake profiles and radical opinions online. In your mentoring program you offer them the opportunity to become real experts in the digital world. In the “Digital Emergency” project, educators are to be trained so that emergencies do not arise in the first place. This is about useful conflict prevention in the form of digital workshops.
“We help schools and families to use digital communication consciously and competently.”
Source: Digital Heroes
Everyone can do something about disinformation! Namely, to critically review content. Don't believe every report! Check the sources! Be skeptical and if in doubt, ask Mimikama.
Source:
Digital Heroes , Conspiracy Checker , Digital Heroes
You might also be interested in: “The Big Reset” – A hodgepodge of old conspiracy myths , Michael A. McManus’ diverse namesakes and the conspiracy theories , Germany is increasingly agreeing with pro-Russian conspiracy theories
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Notes:
1) This content reflects the current state of affairs at the time of publication. The reproduction of individual images, screenshots, embeds or video sequences serves to discuss the topic. 2) Individual contributions were created through the use of machine assistance and were carefully checked by the Mimikama editorial team before publication. ( Reason )

