Teaching kids how to run disinformation campaigns so they can recognize them

Russia’s disinformation campaign during the 2016 US presidential election rocked social media companies like Facebook and Twitter to their core. Now, kids attending the Defcon conference are learning how to create their own bot army.

But the organizers behind the r00tz Asylum, Defcon’s kid-friendly event, say there’s no cause for alarm.

The goal isn’t to launch a new flurry of hoaxes and chaos on social media for the 2020 US presidential election. It’s to teach the next generation of voters about how easily fraud erupts social media and to break down the tools foreign actors use to spread disinformation, r00tz co-founder Nico Sell said

Source: At Defcon, teaching disinformation is child’s play – CNET

Being able to critically think about information we’ve read online is getting more and more important. I weep for the future after seeing so much false information shared on Facebook. Come on people, it takes 30 seconds to verify whether the politician actually said what you’re about to post.