Which of the following do you know? How long do you think you spend online each week? The apps are: Whatsapp Snapchat Twitter Facebook Youtube Vine (short videos) Ask.fm (this is wehere you can post and comment anonymously) Instagram

How do your online habits compare to this? If you have an Android phone you can download the QualityTime app and it will tell you how much time you spend online each week. Are there any volunteers who’d be willing to try this? http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/4574792/Teenagers-spend-an-average-of-31-hours-online.html

Would you share the next posts? What words would you use to describe them? Britain First is a legitimate and legal political party, though they are extremely right-wing. This slide is not included because of their policies though. It is included because they have more Facebook ‘likes’ than all the other parties. Many people believe this is due to the public being unaware of what it is they are ‘liking’, people assume they’re liking the comment and are unaware of who Britain First are and what their policies are. They used subtle manipulation of social media users to raise their profile. Collected Facebook ‘likes’ for popular clickbait articles (‘liked’ by people who did not verify the source). As you ‘like’ a person or a group’s posts, Facebook’s filters will target you with more posts by this group. Britain First followed up by feeding out links to news articles from right-wing sources that backed up BF policies. Any arguments or discussions were deleted and users were fed more inflammatory stories. This is called an ‘echo chamber’ in which only one viewpoint is shared by like-minded people and becomes gradually more and more extreme. Gradually people’s news feed filters start to supply more and more articles that back up these viewpoints. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/generalelection/tories-spend-more-than-100000-a-month-on-facebook--but-still-cant-beat-britain-first-10025435.html

Britain First Data from February 2015

Britain First have only existed for a short-time, but the have already amassed a strong base of ‘supporters.’ This is largely due to their Facebook campaigns. They put up images they know will be popular and which will get them a lot of shares. Often these images have nothing to do with Britain First. e.g. They don’t give any of the money they’ve been donated to protect animal rights. Nor does Lee Rigby’s family want them to use his image.

ISIS/Daesh The amount of propaganda released by groups like ISIS is huge. They use social media profusely to recruit people into travelling abroad, or to carry out attacks at home. Some of their propaganda is designed to scare. Others try to show the ‘nice’ aspects of life there.

Look at the following headline. Some young Muslims rely on ‘Sheikh Google’ to ask complex theological and moral questions. This is concerning as anyone can post online, and many radical posts originate from people who have a very limited knowledge of Islam. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/womens-life/11120869/Muslim-women-Forget-radicalisation-in-mosques-Sheikh-Google-is-the-real-threat-to-young-Muslims.html http://lettertobaghdadi.com/14/english-v14.pdf http://www.lettertobaghdadi.com/ You may want to print out the executive summary of this to have the students read through.

Your task Activity Plan an assembly that you could deliver that would inform younger people in the school about how they can take steps to be safer online.