Effective Debunking
Because social media makes us all broadcasters, we have a responsibility not just to avoid sharing misinformation but to take action when people in our network share it.
Because social media makes us all broadcasters, we have a responsibility not just to avoid sharing misinformation but to take action when people in our network share it.
Children may be particularly at risk online because they’re not always aware of the risks associated with what they’re doing. For that reason, children need close supervision when using digital devices and also need to be taught basic cyber security skills as early as possible.
Teens use the internet as much, and in similar ways, as adults. But they also often engage in risky behaviour such as downloading sketchy apps or pirated music. Social networking sites can also expose teens to a variety of security risks.
Many online threats are covered by existing civil and criminal law in Canada and other countries. In addition, many countries have specific legislation to deal with online crime. This section looks at Canadian and American laws that apply to cyber security.
Spam, online scams and frauds, identity theft and issues related to online purchases are a serious issue in the online world. Navigating the Web while avoiding these threats can be a challenging task.
Software threats are malicious pieces of computer code and applications that can damage your computer, as well as steal your personal or financial information. For this reason, these dangerous programs are often called malware (short for “malicious software”).
Intellectual property - Anything that comes into being through invention or artistic creation. When an intellectual property is also real property, it is possible to own one but not the other – so that owning a painting (real property right) does not automatically give you the right to make copies of it (intellectual property right).
In Canada, consumers have certain rights to use copyrighted material without permission or license from the owner of the copyright. These rights are defined in the Copyright Act as Fair Dealing exemptions and were redefined in the 2012 changes to the Act. A good knowledge of Fair Dealing can be extremely helpful in understanding what you and your students can do with media in class. It's important to note that the Copyright Act provides very little definition for many of these terms; instead, most of the specifics of Fair Dealing have come from court rulings, and the new exemptions and other changes done in 2012 will likely also be further defined in the same way.
Closely associated with intellectual property – but slightly different – is plagiarism.
While youth actively participate in copying, with 95 percent of students in a 2017 survey admitting to participating in some sort of cheating,[i] they have trouble seeing their acts of plagiarism as having a victim. Ultimately, if nobody is hurt then we are unlikely to feel empathy and without that it’s hard to see something as being morally wrong.