A new media literacy series, Solve The Story, has been created to help teenagers separate fact from fiction online.
The 6-part series from BBC Children’s and Education has been designed to equip students and teachers with tools to tackle misinformation and disinformation.
It comes after BBC Bitesize research found that schools lacked the resources to teach critical thinking and media literacy. That’s despite mounting evidence that teenagers are struggling to manage the sheer scale and sophistication of online content. According to the same survey, critical thinking is now considered the single most important skill for young people, yet one in three teachers say it is difficult to teach, citing lack of time, resources and curriculum pressure.
Amy an English teacher from Manchester explained that many of her pupils are convinced they’re “too smart” to be tricked by anything online.
“They’ll laugh at obviously fake AI videos and say, ‘that’s so AI’, but underneath that is a belief that they can’t be fooled. If I tell them something isn’t real, they argue back. They think teachers don’t understand technology, and they automatically trust what they see online more than what we tell them,” she said.
“We’ve had essays referencing ‘the matrix’ and huge conspiracy theories, because they’ve come from influencers like Andrew Tate. Those opinions really appeal to them because they’re presented as ‘facts’. It’s frightening how quickly those ideas embed.”
READ MORE – BBC announces £6m investment for Bitesize platform
Solve the Story premieres in schools this week and helps young people question what they see online, verify sources, spot fakes and understand how misleading narratives spread.
During the Bitesize Teen Summit with Radio 5 Live two thirds of teenagers said they worried about fake news and online misinformation and it caused confusion and contributed to rising levels of stress and anxiety.
“In today’s digital landscape, media literacy isn’t a luxury, it’s a necessity. Solve The Story will help schools to equip young people with the critical thinking tools they need to navigate online content confidently, verify what they see, and protect their mental well being,” said Patricia Hidalgo, Director of BBC Children’s and Education.
“This series is a vital next step towards empowering students and supporting educators in tackling misinformation, as we take Other Side of the Story into classrooms.”
It’s been created as a mystery series, during which characters must apply media literacy skills to uncover the truth, by analysing sources, questioning assumptions, identifying deepfakes, challenging viral claims and spotting bias. Each episode is paired with a “how-to” guide offering clear, practical steps for teachers and resources for classroom use.
“They love short-form content, and this format suits their attention span,” continued English teacher, Amy.
“If teachers show it to them, it will help them stop and question things instead of just accepting whatever they scroll past. They won’t look for it themselves, so teacher buy-in is essential, but once it’s in front of them, it will click.”
Solve the Story is the first content series created for us in schools from the Bitesize Other Side of the Story, that was launched in 2021 to help students navigate the online world and be more critical of the information they consume.
It comes as X has limited image editing with its Grok AI tool to paying users only.
The Elon Musk-owned platform has been criticised after reports that the AI Assistant had generated sexual imagery of children. The Internet Watch Foundation said that its analysts had discovered “criminal imagery of children […] which appears to have been created using the tool.”
Prior to this numerous users said that they had seen AI-generated sexual images of themselves on X.
By limiting the tool to subscribers, it means X will have the name and payment details of those using the function in their systems.
The Prime Minister’s spokesperson said this afternoon that this response was “not a solution. In fact, it’s insulting the victims of misogyny and sexual violence.”
They added that it “simply turns an AI feature that allows the creation of unlawful images into a premium service.”
