Middlesex DA Marian Ryan Unveils Course To Help Teens Spot Fake News

WOBURN, MA — Middlesex District Attorney Marian Ryan last week announced plans for an education program designed to prevent local teenagers from falling victim to online disinformation and misinformation.

Digital Citizenship Academy will be, according to Ryan, a first-of-its-kind civic online reasoning course taught by assistant Middlesex District Attorneys to any Middlesex County-based high school or high school youth program interested in participating.

The course will feature research-based critical thinking and reasoning training and, according to Ryan, "prepare (students) to become leaders in the restoration of our democracy."

The Academy is the result of a partnership between Ryan's office and Digital Inquiry Group (DIG), a new nonprofit that equips young people to sort fact from fiction online.

Ryan announced the partnership on Tuesday, the same say she was elected for a third term as the Middlesex District Attorney. She ran unopposed in the general election.

"There is no question that truth itself is under sustained assault in our nation today," Ryan said. "Our democratic system of government is based on the assumption that citizens can accurately evaluate the world around them and then make reasoned judgments — by voting in their elections and otherwise — about how best to proceed as a society. Built into that assumption, however, is the premise that there is general agreement as to what constitutes the underlying facts."

Ryan continued: "Tragically, and as President Biden pointed out in his national address several weeks ago, the very notion of objective truth is now under both deliberate attack and unintentional decay — gravely threatening our democracy.

"Given this state of affairs, I fundamentally believe that I must, as an elected official serving during this frightening time in our history, do something concrete to ensure that our young people have the critical thinking skills they need to navigate the online information ecosystem so that we can protect democracy's sacred and basic premises."

Ryan said the Academy will be a six-session program (50 minutes each) in which trained instructors will teach students skills like: how to fact-check online claims, how to investigate clues bearing on a given website's credibility, and how to optimize online search activities.

According to the DIG, the Civic Reasoning Curriculum was developed by Professor Sam Wineburg, Director Joel Breakstone and colleagues at the Stanford History Education Group.

The program, the group said, builds on research that suggests students can be misled by websites designed to mask hidden agendas.

"A series of studies show that the Civic Online Reasoning curriculum helps students to make sense of the information that floods their screens," Breakstone said. "We are excited to collaborate with the Middlesex District Attorney's Office to provide students with the tools they need to effectively navigate online."