Nine Kensington Health Science Academy seniors are waging war on misinformation and disinformation in their Philadelphia high school hallways \u2014 and they say it\u2019s working.<\/p>\n
They know the social media algorithms they spend hours scrolling are feeding them AI slop, medical lies and political rhetoric customized to confuse and anger their classmates and family members.<\/p>\n
They\u2019ve seen loved ones fall for fake videos and have unintentionally shared some themselves.<\/p>\n
Now, these students are on a mission to give their classmates tools to spot internet lies.<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople are trying to control what you think and see,\u201d senior Apollo Sunun told Chalkbeat. <\/p>\n
SIGN UP HERE<\/a>\u00a0to get PhillyVoice’s free newsletters delivered to your inbox<\/p>\n In the wake of the 2024 presidential election, KHSA Principal Nimet Eren told Chalkbeat she launched Project FACTS.<\/a> It stands for \u201cfind out where a post is from, analyze it, challenge it, think for yourself before you share.\u201d Eren said FACTS is a nonpartisan effort to teach students how to think for themselves and question the information they\u2019re being presented with.<\/p>\n Media literacy classes have gained momentum in recent years as educators channel their desire to help young people decipher fact from fiction online<\/a>.<\/p>\n Sunun joined the effort\u00a0with eight other seniors: Rafael Rosario, Antonio Edwards, Ian Santiago, Jalyssa Moll, Saniya Salcedo, Carlos Perez, Arianna Cartagena and Solange Jean.<\/p>\n Eren and those students built FACTS into a curriculum and incorporated it into lesson units<\/a> for classes to conduct during homeroom and advisory periods. The message became more powerful when students led the charge, Eren said.<\/p>\n The nine seniors started a FACTS club, meeting weekly during lunch to read articles, social media posts, and other sources of information to interrogate what they\u2019re encountering online and develop informed opinions.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s definitely encouraged me to be more careful with the things I see,\u201d Cartagena said.<\/p>\n Then, they presented their findings to their peers. The students designed fake texts and emails and held assemblies for the wider student population. They talked to their friends about limiting screen time and had discussions about how social media pulls them away from reality. <\/p>\n Eren said before FACTS, the school didn\u2019t have a curriculum to address social media, algorithms, and \u201ceverything that was happening online.\u201d Now, she often overhears students in between classes asking each other to \u201ccheck their facts.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI definitely hear kids use the FACTS acronym around the school, and it lets me know people really understand,\u201d Salcedo said.<\/p>\n The key to reaching teenagers? Acknowledging the positives about social media in addition to the drawbacks, the students said.<\/p>\n \u201cWe didn\u2019t want to focus too much on the negative, because that would have caused especially people our age, to tune out of what we were talking about,\u201d Cartagena said. \u201cWe weren\u2019t trying to persuade them into just thinking that social media was negative, but to make them think about how using social media may impact their lives.\u201d <\/p>\n