Scouts wanting to fill up their sweater with badges need to work on a new skill: spotting fake news.
Alongside more traditional awards for angling, cycling and orienteering, the ability to root out online lies is now to be included in a relaunched digital citizen badge, after Covid-19 unleashed a torrent of fakery.
The media regulator Ofcom has found that half of adults have been exposed to fake news in the pandemic and now the UK’s 638,000 scouts are to be given the chance to learn how to spot fake news, manage cyberbullying and protect their privacy online.
Scouts, 28% of whom are female, will be asked to debate topics about which there is considerable misinformation online, show that they can spot the difference between facts and opinions and consider how easy or hard it is to know if evidence is reliable or not.
