Misinformation Lab — Digital Futures

🎯 Learning Objectives

✓Distinguish between misinformation, disinformation and satire
✓Explain how social media algorithms create echo chambers
✓Apply the SIFT method to evaluate a viral claim

📚 Key Vocabulary

Misinformation

False information shared without intent to deceive

Disinformation

False information shared deliberately to mislead

Algorithm

A set of rules a platform uses to decide what content to show you

Echo chamber

An environment where you only encounter opinions that match your own

Confirmation bias

The tendency to believe information that matches what you already think

⏱️ Lesson Timing (50 mins)

🪝

Hook

5 mins

Show 3 viral social media posts — one true, one false, one satire. Students vote on each. Most get at least one wrong. Why?

👨‍🏫

Teach

10 mins

•Misinformation vs disinformation vs satire: intent matters
•How platforms work: engagement = more reach (outrage travels fastest)
•Echo chambers: algorithms show you more of what you click on
•How to break the bubble: follow diverse sources, check before sharing
•SIFT: Stop → Investigate → Find better coverage → Trace claims

🛠️

Create

40 mins

Fact-checking newsroom: students are editors at a fictional fact-checking agency. They receive 8 claims (supplied — mix of real viral posts and fabricated ones). For each: classify (true/false/misleading/satire), apply SIFT, write a one-sentence verdict with evidence. Then create a short "How to Spot Fake News" Instagram-style carousel (3 slides in Canva).

Tools:

BingFull Fact (fullfact.org)Canva

📢

5 mins

Which claim was hardest to verify? Why? What does that tell us about how misinformation works?

🔧 Tools & Resources

🤖 AI Angle

AI-generated text and deepfakes are making misinformation harder than ever to detect. Even fact-checkers struggle.

📝 Evidence of Learning

Completed fact-check log + Canva carousel (exported)

📚 Homework

Find a claim that went viral on social media and turned out to be false. Research it using Full Fact or Snopes. Write a short report: what was claimed, what was actually true, and why people believed it.

⏱️ 20 mins

♿ Differentiation

Support (for students who need help)

Claims are pre-highlighted with the key statement to check

Extension (for advanced learners)

Research how governments and organisations use social media strategically to influence public opinion. Is this misinformation?

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