Can we really teach children to spot fake news?

As part of the ongoing review into the primary and secondary school curriculum, Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson has announced that children in England will be taught how to spot misinformation and extremist content online, so that students can arm themselves against ‘putrid conspiracy theories’. In the wake of weeks of rioting, with children as young as 12 and 13 now in court for their involvement, this announcement seems like a sensible idea, but it is not necessarily a straightforward one.

Children and teenagers are excellent targets for fake news, but they are notoriously bad at spotting it. Research by the National Literacy Trust suggests that the vast majority of students have heard of fake news, but when they gave students a quiz involving six news stories, only 3.1 per cent of primary school pupils and 0.6 per cent of secondary school pupils could correctly identify the four real stories from the two fake ones.