In August 2021, Illinois became the first state to require medialiteracy classes for high school students. To encourage students todevelop their research skills, the state is requiring classes that willteach teenagers how to discern facts from fiction. Beginning with the2022-2023 school year, HB0234 (Public Act 102-0055) requiresevery public high school to include in its curriculum a unit ofinstruction on media literacy.

Between our constantly updating stream of vetted, real-world contentand dedicated resources , we can help teachers bring media literacyand digital citizenship into their classrooms with engaging, thoughtfullessons that help students build media literacy skills, practiceanalyzing media and think critically about how media literacy relatesto making responsible decisions.

Helps students understandmedia and advertisingconcepts and techniques

Engaging topics and activitieshelp students make sense ofthe past and present andunderstand how it relates backto their lives.

Provides instructionalsupports and lesson ideasfor every text

Each text set comes withresources to help teacherssupport studentsunderstanding of medialiteracy and the importanceof being able to determinefact from fiction.

Supports ISTE #DigCitCommit inpreparing students to be gooddigital citizens

Students can explore articlesrelated to each of the five#DigCitCommit competencies(Inclusive, Informed, Engaged,Balanced and Alert) to stay safe,solve problems and become aforce for good. .

Social media platformsare watching your everyonline move

ILLINOIS LESSON EXAMPLE

Media LiteracySupporting Illinois Curriculum Mandates

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Teachers can create and share customizable assignments and give students access to reading comprehension quizzes, customizable writing prompts, and annotations.

Teachers can use Newsela to teach to the standards and priorities of their school and district. Create custom activities, search forcontent by standard, curate Text Sets, and control the reading levels students see.

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Instructional supports for each articleHelp teachers expand students' learning experience and engagement

Social media platforms have access toeverything you do on their site; thisincludes, but is not limited to, the photosand videos you post, your comments and"likes," anything you search, share orconsult, the identity of your friends andany other users you interact with, andyour location. Social media platforms and searchengines do not sell data, but rather use itto give companies targeted access to aconsumer (i.e. you) who has veryspecific characteristics.

What kinds of user data do social mediaplatforms and search engines collect? How do social media platforms andsearch engines use your personal data?

What Social Media Platforms KnowAbout You

Time to Complete: 30 mins.

Overview: Facebook and its founder andCEO Mark Zuckerberg came under fire in2017 and 2018 over a scandal involving theharvesting of data from tens of millions ofusers. One result of this scandal is that it hasraised a lot of questions about social mediaand search engines.In this Lesson Spark, students will learnwhat social media platforms know about us,including what kind of data is collected andhow this information is shared.

Key Takeaways

Comprehension Questions

ActivitiesBefore ReadingAsk students to reflect and respond: What doyou think your favorite social media site orsearch engine knows about you? After givingstudents some time to respond, show thisvideo (2:20 mins) from a ProPublica featureabout Facebook user algorithms.

Reading StrategyAs you read, complete a Venn Diagram.Record details about what social mediaplatforms know about you and how they usethis information on one side. Record detailsabout what search engines know about youand how they use this information on theother. Details that overlap between the twoshould be recorded in the center.

Custom Write Prompt: What kind of user datado social media platforms and search engineshave access to? How do social mediaplatforms and search engines use yourpersonal data? Support your answer withdetails from the article.

After ReadingGive students an opportunity to make theiropinions and recommendations heard. Aspointed out in the article, countries around theworld vary in terms of their official policies onhow to govern user data on the Internet. Havestudents research and write a policyrecommendation, making sure to explain therationale behind their recommendation.Consider submitting these recommendationsto a local representative.

Example Lesson Spark for Media Literacy

Image 1. In 2016, the European Commission investigated claims that Facebook could not merge user information from the messagingnetwork WhatsApp, which it acquired in 2014. Facebook was fined $135.7 million in 2017. Photo: Jaap Arriens/NurPhoto/Getty Images

In March, the public learned that the personalinformation of more than 87 million Facebookusers was used by another company. Thecompany, Cambridge Analytica, helpscandidates win elections.

The scandal raised many questions aboutprivacy on social media and search engines.

Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerbergtestified before the U.S. Congress about how thecompany protects user data. Here is a primer onwhat the company knows about you.

Social MediaFacebook, which has more than 2 billion users,has access to everything you do on the site. Itcan see the photos and videos you post, your

comments, your "likes," anything you share.Among other things, it also knows the identityof your friends and your location.

The same goes for Instagram and WhatsApp,which are owned by Facebook, and Snapchatand Twitter. A user can control who sees someof their data with privacy settings and the adpreferences page.

Facebook insists it does not sell information toadvertisers that would identify an individual oreven a group of people. It does give advertisersthe ability to target specific demographics thatwould be more likely to buy their products.Twitter, for its part, has a search engine thatsweeps up all messages on the site. It givesadvertisers access to it.

This article can beaccessed at five

different reading levelsin English and Spanish.

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Social media platforms are watching your everyonline moveBy Agence France-Presse, adapted by Newsela staff. Published: 07/20/2018. Word Count: 667Recommended for: High School. Text Level: 7

Caption

ARTICLEGovernment & Economics

Outside app developers have access to mostsocial media platforms. They create appsbased on data from users. In the case ofFacebook, anyone can view a person's publicprofile — the whole page for some people, orjust the first and last name and photo forothers. The user does not have to givepermission, but seeing the rest of theinformation may require a separate OK fromthe user.

Once data is mined by outside apps, Facebookdoes not have control over it. Trying to get holdof it again is difficult.

"Once people had access to that data,Facebook has no way of knowing for sure whatthey did with that data," said Ryan Matzner,co-founder of mobile app designer Fueled."It's like sending an email to somebody andthen saying,

What did they do with that email?' You don'tknow."

Only bank and credit card information iscompletely private.

Search EnginesGoogle, Yahoo and Bing gather all informationinvolving searches. They keep a record of whatwebsites are searched and where the user islocated. This can be put together withinformation from other services owned by thegiant Internet companies. The end result isthat the Internet companies can tell a lotabout you.You don't have to tell Google your age and yourgender and all those things. They candetermine all of that based on so many otherfactors," said Chirag Shah, a computer scienceprofessor at Rutgers University.

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Like social networks, its revenue comes largelyfrom advertising. It does not sell data, but ratheraccess to a consumer with very specificcharacteristics.

This comes from compiling search engine data butalso, in the case of Google, from searches andcontent viewed on YouTube. Google used to alsomine the content of Gmail but ended it in June2017.

Like social media networks, search engines sharedata with developers and third-party app makers.

In the United States, there are practically no lawsagainst using data from social media or searchengines.

In 2011, the Federal Trade Commission saidFacebook broke its promise to keep userinformation private. In response, Facebook said itwould seek permission before sharing it with othercompanies.

In Canada and Europe, there are some limits on theuse of data, mainly involving health.

Facebook was fined $135.7 million by the EuropeanUnion last year for sharing personal data withWhatsApp.

In Europe, a new law to protect user data called theGeneral Data Protection Regulation went into effectin May. Users must give permission for companiesto collect their information. It also sets strictguidelines about what kind of data can be collectedand how it can be used.

© Agence France-Presse, 2018. It is expressly forbidden for Subscriberslocated in France or Japan to use this AFP text article for any purposewhatsoever, including for personal use.

Newsela’s content is published daily from trusted and vetted sources at 5 different reading levels. Teacherscan find a wide range of SEL resources to support instruction supporting Illinois curriculum mandates.

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