COMBATING SOCIAL MEDIA DISINFORMATION

Background Both EU Parliament and EC highlight the role of social media in distribution of disinformation, undermining EU democracy and questioning our European common values. Despite EU actions (from both 2018 and May 2021) to control social media giants, the social media have appeared to have still be "stirring the pot". Thousands of Facebook documents revealed by Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen demonstrate why of the EU population must develop media literacy skills and exercise their civic engagement and participation in tackling disinformation to make EC’s efforts on preserving EU democracy effective. This especially concerns young people, who constitute the majority of digital citizens of today (45% of the world's internet users are below 25, according to UN’s #YouthStats). The youth of today live in the world of diverse social media, densely saturated with disinformation. Particularly when consuming information on social media, they require Media Literacy skills to be able to tell what they can trust. Media literacy can and should be taught to youth, to defend EU values and democracy and preserve youth’s mental health and the future. Therefore, the problem our project addresses is youth lacking media literacy (ML) skills, required to identify and counteract disinformation in the poorly controlled environment of social media. Social media of today are flourishing with fake news, political propaganda, fabricated / manipulated / sponsored content, deep fakes and other types of disinformation that are still emerging following technological progress. As youth processes information visually, they are likely to receive information from YouTube influencers rather than from established media outlets. The same time, they do not possess enough ML skills to judge the falsehood of the information they consume: “Navigating the complex online landscape circumspectly requires a certain level of literacy and maturity that children and young people may not have acquired” (UNICEF.) In today’s difficult times, however, Media Literacy must be endorsed among youth educators as well. Everyone working with youth should increase their own media literacy competence in order to successfully help youth also develop these skills. Furthermore, youth workers and trainers must utilise pedagogical methods that would be effective in teaching modern youth. Specifically, the project will develop the Toolkit, The Guide, and the Mobile Game with disinformation larps to support youth educators, in order to boost their competences and the resources available to them to promote media literacy, critical thinking and digital competences amongst youth with the ultimate aim to prepare them to take part in a democracy. The current project proposals seeks to meet these needs by harnessing the enormous potential of popular education (folkbildning). Young people, most of whom are representatives of Gen Z (everyone up to the age 25), want to actively participate in the learning process, be creative, and their learning to be more connected to the real-world (according to the research of Adobe Educate). Popular education (folkbildning) is the foremost way to satisfy this kind of learning needs. As a part of their popular education mission, Studiefrämjandet arranges gaming study circles, with Live Action Role Play (larp) being an in-demand direction among youth. Larp is a combination of re-enactment, storytelling and gaming, when players are given a role and act out their character. Due to larp’s high engagement and connection to the real-world, the project intends to use this tool for teaching young people about disinformation. The content of this page is published for information purposes only. The project was funded by the European Union. However, the communication about the project that is published through this page expresses the views of the project beneficiaries only and it does not represent the views of the European Union or the European Commission. It shall not be deemed to constitute legal or official notice on behalf of the European Union or the European Commission. Neither the European Union nor the European Commission can be held responsible for this content nor the use thereof made by any third parties. Page 2 of 5 2021-2-SE02-KA220-YOU-000051481 Generated on: Jan 9, 2026 Objectives Social media is the main channel for disinformation among youth, being their main channel for both consuming news and communicating their opinion, views, and experiences with others. 87% of European youth 16 - 24 y.o. use social networks. 14% of European youth 16 - 24 y.o. also post opinions on civic or political issues on social media. (Eurostat, 2020). According to UNICEF’s analysis (August 2021), youth “find themselves more attuned to social media and the online world than their parents, caregivers and educators, and are both comfortable with this world and curious about it. With increased digital use comes increased exposure to mis/disinformation: in one 2020 study, 76% of 14–24-year-olds reported seeing online mis/disinformation at least once a week, a rise of 50% on the previous two years”. The same time, youth is the target group that is most susceptible to disinformation due to lack of media literacy and civic competences, as well as simply life experience. The same analysis from UNICEF states that “children may be particularly vulnerable to mis/disinformation because their maturity and cognitive capacities are still evolving”, and further: “A study found that only 2% of children and young people have the critical literacy skills they need to judge whether a news story is real or false”. (UNICEF Office of Global Insight and Policy, 2021). That's why the problem our project addresses is youth lacking media literacy (ML) skills, required to identify and counteract disinformation in the poorly controlled environment of social media. To confront this problem, the project aims at pedagogically equipping youth workers with methods and tools for increasing ML skills of youth to ultimately reduce disinformation on social media. These ML skills will include identifying disinformation, its different types and intentions behind it, reacting to social media disinformation responsibly, and reporting it with regards to these being one’s democratic participation and civic duty. Importantly, the proposed pedagogical methods and tools will be relevant specifically for the youth of today (Gen Z, 15 – 25 y.o) The specific project aims: • Providing youth workers with a toolkit containing scenarios for live role plays that develop youth’s ML • Supplying youth workers with a guide on how to educate youth on disinformation and use the toolkit • Developing a mobile game for young people 15-25, where a player will face simulating reality social media disinformation cases and will have to make choices to enhance their ML The project will allow youth workers and educators both to boost their skills of verifying the trustworthiness of social media information, and to be able to integrate live action role play into their courses in organic and effective way. Youth workers and trainers will have a new powerful educational tool to run their lessons with; the tool that will increase young people’s critical digital literacy and their ability to succeed in the global digital community. The aims set are intended to facilitate the following changes in the final beneficiaries of the project, the youth: - Increased awareness of the power of the social media and their influence on democratic issues; - Improved knowledge to critically assess the information and identify disinformation - Increased competences to manage a media-saturated environment - Increased interest in being more active in society - Provided with a challenging and attractive new way of learning (larp) and fun mobile game - Increased self-confidence to engage in social activities - New contacts and network for further support and/or development Activities In terms of the development of the Project Results, the activities to be carried out will be as follows: The content of this page is published for information purposes only. The project was funded by the European Union. However, the communication about the project that is published through this page expresses the views of the project beneficiaries only and it does not represent the views of the European Union or the European Commission. It shall not be deemed to constitute legal or official notice on behalf of the European Union or the European Commission. Neither the European Union nor the European Commission can be held responsible for this content nor the use thereof made by any third parties. Page 3 of 5 2021-2-SE02-KA220-YOU-000051481 Generated on: Jan 9, 2026 Project Result 1 - TOOLKIT WITH LARP SCENARIOS ON DISINFORMATION A1.1 The Toolkit draft: development of 5 larps A1.2 Focus groups: testing the larps with educators and youth workers A1.3 Pilot testing: testing activities with young people in all countries A1.4 Toolkit finalisation: implementation of the pilots feedback, fine-tuning and production of the final version A1.5 Translation to the