In Is Digital Media Reliable?, host Radzi Chinyanganya explores the emerging technology of deep fakes and its implications for the media, politics, and society. This video explains how deep fake videos, which use artificial intelligence to manipulate images and sound, can create realistic yet entirely fabricated content. Learn how deep fakes are made, discuss their potential uses (both harmful and harmless), and examine the dangers they pose in spreading misinformation. This video is excerpted from BBC’s My World, a program created for teenagers eager to learn more about the important stories shaping our world.
The UK might be looking at 2027 with a lot less scrolling and far fewer TikTok dances, as Prime Minister (at the time) Kier Starmer announced plans to ban people under 16 from using social media, planned for spring.
Many of the ban's strongest supporters are parents who lost children in cases linked to online harms and have been campaigning for this for years. Though they’re happy about the announcement, there’s still some skepticism about how the ban will actually work, the logistics of how it will be enforced, and what sort of pushback there will be.
Even before taking effect, the proposal has sparked debate. Some people argue the ban is too strict and that better guidance, education, and parental controls would be more effective. Others point out that many teenagers use social media to stay in touch with friends and family. Some also worry the ban could give parents a false sense of security if they rely on it instead of staying involved in their children's online lives.
Tech companies argue the ban may not keep children as safe as supporters hope, as a ban on widely-used platforms might push some young people toward less-regulated online spaces that aren’t included in the ban or entice them to find a work-around for the age verification.
In How Do Journalists Earn Our Trust?, host Radzi Chinyanganya explains how journalists can earn our trust in a world of viral social media and misinformation. He highlights the importance of accuracy in the story of a rescue operation of a little girl named Frida Sofia after a devastating earthquake in September of 2017 in Mexico. International media, including The New York Times and the Associated Press, picked up the story and Frida went viral. In the end, the story wasn’t based on fact, and no one named Frida had ever even attended the school. Being transparent and admitting their mistakes can help journalists earn trust. This video is excerpted from BBC’s My World, a program created for teenagers eager to learn more about the important stories shaping our world.
In Who Decides?, host Radzi Chinyanganya discovers who decides what people see, read, and hear in the news. Because there are so many events and limited space to report the news, all news is filtered. In journalism, editors decide which stories are worth telling. The companies that run apps, social media, and websites, use computer programs called algorithms to decide which content individuals see. They might try to influence consumers’ views or emotions. Getting news from varied sources is the only way to ensure you’re seeing the complete picture. This video is excerpted from BBC’s My World, a program created for teenagers eager to learn more about the important stories shaping our world.
In How Do Journalists Find the News?, host Radzi Chinyanganya explores how journalists find and gather their news, ask the right questions, and let their curiosity drive them. Today, journalists still look to trusted sources, correspondents, and news agencies, but they also use online tools like social media to discover what the public is talking about. Then they send teams to the scene to talk to eyewitnesses, emergency services, and to gather statements. This video is excerpted from BBC’s My World, a program created for teenagers eager to learn more about the important stories shaping our world.
It's tempting to think that seeing is believing, but that's not always the case. When scrolling the internet, it's important to put on your skepticism hat. There's a lot of fake stuff out there, and some of it is convincing.
For example, a Facebook post appeared to come from York Council — the local government office for the city of York, England. It asked people with spare rooms to house asylum seekers (people who have fled their home country and are asking a government for protection). The post wasn't real, but it spread quickly across Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, X, and YouTube. BBC Verify, the BBC's fact-checking team, estimated it could have reached more than a million people.
Misinformation like this can cause real problems, especially when it spreads about sensitive subjects like asylum seekers. Repeated exposure to false information can also make people question what's true at all — damaging trust between people and communities.
So how can you tell what's fake? Even careful readers are finding it harder to spot, while fake content is getting easier to make — a dangerous combination. The fake council post looked convincing: it had an official logo, professional-sounding text, and even a real email address. But a few small details gave it away: the logo was slightly distorted, some words were misspelled, parts of the image looked unnatural, and the AI-generated hands had too many fingers.
Those details are easy to miss when scrolling quickly — but learning to spot them is exactly what makes the difference between falling for a fake and catching one.
Some high school students recently swapped their smartphones for basic "brick" phones — the kind with no social media or apps, just texting, calling, and the classic game Snake.
The three-week experiment offered a preview of what life might look like once the UK's proposed ban on social media for under-16s takes effect next year. Calls to limit young people's social media use have been building for years, as critics argue some app features are designed to keep users scrolling. Some young people spend up to 20 hours a day on screens, which can affect sleep and time for schoolwork. Many students — along with their parents or carers — say they're struggling to manage screen time.
Feedback from the students was mixed. Some missed chatting with friends online and keeping up with trends. Others found they spent more time outdoors or with family and friends in person. Many said they didn't end up missing screen time as much as they expected.
Birdwatching is taking off in a big way among young people. Reports say that around 750,000 people aged 16–29 in the UK and millions in the U.S. now regularly go birdwatching — turning what was once seen as a “quiet” hobby into a fast-growing trend.
Part of the appeal is how simple it is to start. You don’t need expensive gear or special training — just curiosity and a bit of time outdoors. It’s a low-pressure way to take a break from screens, notice what’s around you, and actually tune into sounds and spaces most people scroll past.
Ironically, social media is helping drive the trend. Birdwatching accounts, short videos, and identification apps are making it easier than ever to learn bird calls, spot species, and share discoveries with others. Instead of pulling people away from nature, platforms like TikTok and Instagram are often pushing people back into it.
Conservationists are especially excited because this kind of interest helps more people connect with wildlife and care about protecting it. Birdwatching is becoming less about binoculars and notebooks — and more about curiosity, community, and noticing the world a little differently.
In Where Do You Find Your News?, host Radzi Chinyanganya highlights the importance of making sure your news comes from a trustworthy source. Some things to think about include noting whether or not the topic is the source’s area of expertise, whether they’ve shown a commitment to accuracy over a period of time, and whether or not they’ve been willing to admit when they’ve made a mistake. The news should be watched with a critical eye, letting facts shape our views instead of our views shaping the facts. This video is excerpted from BBC’s My World, a program created for teenagers eager to learn more about the important stories shaping our world.
In What Is News?, host Radzi Chinyanganya introduces the concept of news: its history, purpose, and its potential downside. From its earliest iterations, news provides the information needed for people to make decisions and stay safe. Today, technology allows us to learn information in real time on both a local and global scale. It can be overwhelming to know what to give our attention to and what is real or fake, so it’s necessary to be a smart consumer of news and have trusted sources. This video is excerpted from BBC’s My World, a program created for teenagers eager to learn more about the important stories shaping our world.
Over the next few months, scrolling on your phone may look a little different. That’s because Meta, the company behind Facebook and Instagram, has been facing more pressure over claims that its platforms harm young people, and both citizens and the legal system have been demanding a change that has landed Meta in a lawsuit.
A judge in New Mexico did not hold back on criticizing harmful content, declaring Meta’s platforms a "public nuisance" and comparing the company to a factory creating toxic pollution. Yikes. The court also called out Meta for design features like infinite scroll, notifications, and recommendation algorithms that encourage people to stay online longer.
Meta was ordered to put a whopping $567 million into a five-year fund addressing harms. That’s on top of $375 million awarded earlier in the same case! But believe it or not, that’s not a ton of money for the company. The important part is not the money itself, but the indication that people are demanding change and getting companies to listen. Meta isn’t just being asked to pay a fine but to actually make changes, like restricting contact with adults, limiting notifications, and placing limits on how long people under 18 can spend on Facebook and Instagram.
Meta strongly disputes the ruling and plans to appeal, but the case has already set a larger question into motion about if tech companies should be held responsible not only for what users post but also how their platforms are designed.
End-to-end encryption prevents anyone from viewing online communications except the sender and the receiver. Or, it prevents anyone online from viewing it. Can’t do much about someone looking over your shoulder on the subway.
In 2019, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg promised to roll it out across his suite of apps — you know, those Facebook and Instagram things you may have heard of? But that promise was met with mixed results. On one hand, many were happy that their private conversations could be kept, well, private. On the other hand, there was pushback from police and government groups that could use messages to catch criminals.
Implementing end-to-end encryption was a years-long process for Zuckerberg, until his platforms abandoned the concept just this year. The company tweaked their terms and conditions to suggest that not enough people were opting into the encryption, but critics have questioned that explanation, pointing out that private messaging is an important part of how platforms keep users engaged and can support their advertising business.
In Is Digital Media Reliable?, host Radzi Chinyanganya explores the emerging technology of deep fakes and its implications for the media, politics, and society. This video explains how deep fake videos, which use artificial intelligence to manipulate images and sound, can create realistic yet entirely fabricated content. Learn how deep fakes are made, discuss their potential uses (both harmful and harmless), and examine the dangers they pose in spreading misinformation. This video is excerpted from BBC’s My World, a program created for teenagers eager to learn more about the important stories shaping our world.
The UK might be looking at 2027 with a lot less scrolling and far fewer TikTok dances, as Prime Minister (at the time) Kier Starmer announced plans to ban people under 16 from using social media, planned for spring.
Many of the ban's strongest supporters are parents who lost children in cases linked to online harms and have been campaigning for this for years. Though they’re happy about the announcement, there’s still some skepticism about how the ban will actually work, the logistics of how it will be enforced, and what sort of pushback there will be.
Even before taking effect, the proposal has sparked debate. Some people argue the ban is too strict and that better guidance, education, and parental controls would be more effective. Others point out that many teenagers use social media to stay in touch with friends and family. Some also worry the ban could give parents a false sense of security if they rely on it instead of staying involved in their children's online lives.
Tech companies argue the ban may not keep children as safe as supporters hope, as a ban on widely-used platforms might push some young people toward less-regulated online spaces that aren’t included in the ban or entice them to find a work-around for the age verification.
In How Do Journalists Earn Our Trust?, host Radzi Chinyanganya explains how journalists can earn our trust in a world of viral social media and misinformation. He highlights the importance of accuracy in the story of a rescue operation of a little girl named Frida Sofia after a devastating earthquake in September of 2017 in Mexico. International media, including The New York Times and the Associated Press, picked up the story and Frida went viral. In the end, the story wasn’t based on fact, and no one named Frida had ever even attended the school. Being transparent and admitting their mistakes can help journalists earn trust. This video is excerpted from BBC’s My World, a program created for teenagers eager to learn more about the important stories shaping our world.
In Who Decides?, host Radzi Chinyanganya discovers who decides what people see, read, and hear in the news. Because there are so many events and limited space to report the news, all news is filtered. In journalism, editors decide which stories are worth telling. The companies that run apps, social media, and websites, use computer programs called algorithms to decide which content individuals see. They might try to influence consumers’ views or emotions. Getting news from varied sources is the only way to ensure you’re seeing the complete picture. This video is excerpted from BBC’s My World, a program created for teenagers eager to learn more about the important stories shaping our world.
In How Do Journalists Find the News?, host Radzi Chinyanganya explores how journalists find and gather their news, ask the right questions, and let their curiosity drive them. Today, journalists still look to trusted sources, correspondents, and news agencies, but they also use online tools like social media to discover what the public is talking about. Then they send teams to the scene to talk to eyewitnesses, emergency services, and to gather statements. This video is excerpted from BBC’s My World, a program created for teenagers eager to learn more about the important stories shaping our world.
It's tempting to think that seeing is believing, but that's not always the case. When scrolling the internet, it's important to put on your skepticism hat. There's a lot of fake stuff out there, and some of it is convincing.
For example, a Facebook post appeared to come from York Council — the local government office for the city of York, England. It asked people with spare rooms to house asylum seekers (people who have fled their home country and are asking a government for protection). The post wasn't real, but it spread quickly across Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, X, and YouTube. BBC Verify, the BBC's fact-checking team, estimated it could have reached more than a million people.
Misinformation like this can cause real problems, especially when it spreads about sensitive subjects like asylum seekers. Repeated exposure to false information can also make people question what's true at all — damaging trust between people and communities.
So how can you tell what's fake? Even careful readers are finding it harder to spot, while fake content is getting easier to make — a dangerous combination. The fake council post looked convincing: it had an official logo, professional-sounding text, and even a real email address. But a few small details gave it away: the logo was slightly distorted, some words were misspelled, parts of the image looked unnatural, and the AI-generated hands had too many fingers.
Those details are easy to miss when scrolling quickly — but learning to spot them is exactly what makes the difference between falling for a fake and catching one.
Some high school students recently swapped their smartphones for basic "brick" phones — the kind with no social media or apps, just texting, calling, and the classic game Snake.
The three-week experiment offered a preview of what life might look like once the UK's proposed ban on social media for under-16s takes effect next year. Calls to limit young people's social media use have been building for years, as critics argue some app features are designed to keep users scrolling. Some young people spend up to 20 hours a day on screens, which can affect sleep and time for schoolwork. Many students — along with their parents or carers — say they're struggling to manage screen time.
Feedback from the students was mixed. Some missed chatting with friends online and keeping up with trends. Others found they spent more time outdoors or with family and friends in person. Many said they didn't end up missing screen time as much as they expected.
Birdwatching is taking off in a big way among young people. Reports say that around 750,000 people aged 16–29 in the UK and millions in the U.S. now regularly go birdwatching — turning what was once seen as a “quiet” hobby into a fast-growing trend.
Part of the appeal is how simple it is to start. You don’t need expensive gear or special training — just curiosity and a bit of time outdoors. It’s a low-pressure way to take a break from screens, notice what’s around you, and actually tune into sounds and spaces most people scroll past.
Ironically, social media is helping drive the trend. Birdwatching accounts, short videos, and identification apps are making it easier than ever to learn bird calls, spot species, and share discoveries with others. Instead of pulling people away from nature, platforms like TikTok and Instagram are often pushing people back into it.
Conservationists are especially excited because this kind of interest helps more people connect with wildlife and care about protecting it. Birdwatching is becoming less about binoculars and notebooks — and more about curiosity, community, and noticing the world a little differently.
In Where Do You Find Your News?, host Radzi Chinyanganya highlights the importance of making sure your news comes from a trustworthy source. Some things to think about include noting whether or not the topic is the source’s area of expertise, whether they’ve shown a commitment to accuracy over a period of time, and whether or not they’ve been willing to admit when they’ve made a mistake. The news should be watched with a critical eye, letting facts shape our views instead of our views shaping the facts. This video is excerpted from BBC’s My World, a program created for teenagers eager to learn more about the important stories shaping our world.
In What Is News?, host Radzi Chinyanganya introduces the concept of news: its history, purpose, and its potential downside. From its earliest iterations, news provides the information needed for people to make decisions and stay safe. Today, technology allows us to learn information in real time on both a local and global scale. It can be overwhelming to know what to give our attention to and what is real or fake, so it’s necessary to be a smart consumer of news and have trusted sources. This video is excerpted from BBC’s My World, a program created for teenagers eager to learn more about the important stories shaping our world.
Over the next few months, scrolling on your phone may look a little different. That’s because Meta, the company behind Facebook and Instagram, has been facing more pressure over claims that its platforms harm young people, and both citizens and the legal system have been demanding a change that has landed Meta in a lawsuit.
A judge in New Mexico did not hold back on criticizing harmful content, declaring Meta’s platforms a "public nuisance" and comparing the company to a factory creating toxic pollution. Yikes. The court also called out Meta for design features like infinite scroll, notifications, and recommendation algorithms that encourage people to stay online longer.
Meta was ordered to put a whopping $567 million into a five-year fund addressing harms. That’s on top of $375 million awarded earlier in the same case! But believe it or not, that’s not a ton of money for the company. The important part is not the money itself, but the indication that people are demanding change and getting companies to listen. Meta isn’t just being asked to pay a fine but to actually make changes, like restricting contact with adults, limiting notifications, and placing limits on how long people under 18 can spend on Facebook and Instagram.
Meta strongly disputes the ruling and plans to appeal, but the case has already set a larger question into motion about if tech companies should be held responsible not only for what users post but also how their platforms are designed.
End-to-end encryption prevents anyone from viewing online communications except the sender and the receiver. Or, it prevents anyone online from viewing it. Can’t do much about someone looking over your shoulder on the subway.
In 2019, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg promised to roll it out across his suite of apps — you know, those Facebook and Instagram things you may have heard of? But that promise was met with mixed results. On one hand, many were happy that their private conversations could be kept, well, private. On the other hand, there was pushback from police and government groups that could use messages to catch criminals.
Implementing end-to-end encryption was a years-long process for Zuckerberg, until his platforms abandoned the concept just this year. The company tweaked their terms and conditions to suggest that not enough people were opting into the encryption, but critics have questioned that explanation, pointing out that private messaging is an important part of how platforms keep users engaged and can support their advertising business.