Teachers will adapt lessons to help children spot extremist content and ‘putrid’ fake news in the wake of last week’s riots, it has emerged.
In a curriculum revamp, subjects such as English, maths and ICT will be used to ‘arm’ pupils against falling for dangerous conspiracy theories.
Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson told the Sunday Telegraph that she hopes children as young as five will develop the critical thinking skills needed to identify misinformation on social media, following a wave of young people being swept up in the recent unrest across the country.
‘It’s important we give young people the knowledge and skills to be able to challenge what they see online,’ she said.
Britain’s most senior prosecutor Stephen Parkinson has warned it is ‘deeply disturbing’ to see children as young as 11 taking part in riots.
On Friday a 13-year-old boy appeared in court to face charges of violent disorder in Manchester on July 31.
It comes as specialist organised crime detectives have been assigned to go after influencers with large followings who have spread hate and incited violence.
The riots began on July 30 following a spate of misinformation about the killing of three children in Southport a day prior.
The suspect was not initially named, granted automatic anonymity due to his age.
But as misinformation spread online that the perpetrator was an Islamist asylum seeker, his identity was revealed as a 17-year-old from Lancashire.
He is accused of killing Alice Dasilva Aguiar, nine, Bebe King, six, and Elsie Dot Stancombe, seven, with a kitchen knife on Monday.
Eight other children sustained knife wounds from a brutal attack on a dance class in the town, with five of them left in critical condition.
Judge Menary KC cited ‘idiotic rioting’ in parts of the UK in his reasoning for lifting the anonymity.
Suspect Axel Rudakubana has since been charged with murdering three children.
Sources in the government told The Telegraph the riots showed the risk of young people being ‘sucked in to dangerous online spaces’ – arguing it needed to be urgently addressed.
Ms Phillipson is now reviewing the primary and secondary school curriculum, as she claimed it was failing to ‘prepare enough of our children for work and for life’.
The review will look at teaching children to spot and dismiss extremist content by building within children critical thinking skills across lessons in multiple subjects.
It is being led by Prof Becky Francis will report back next year, meaning its recommendations may be introduced in September 2025.
It is claimed the planned changes will help children identify all extremist content, including far-Left conspiracy theories and religion-based propaganda.
For instance it could involve using English classes to dissect newspaper reporting, examining their style and use of language compared to fake news outlets.
It is thought that would teach children to differentiate between real journalism and propaganda, by looking out for signs such as bias and hyperbole in the latter.
In computer lessons, students are to be taught how to identify unreliable sources and websites by their designs.
Many propaganda sites are crude imitations of real news outlets, including those of newspapers and broadcasters, but they continue to fool social media users.
Misinformation about the Southport attacker was amplified by Channel3 Now, which poses as a US news outlet but was revealed by the Daily Mail as linked to Russia.
But even some of the smartest and richest people in the world have fallen victim to fake news disinformation.
Elon Musk tweeted far-Right fake news that Sir Keir Starmer is considering building ’emergency’ prisons on the Falkland Islands for arrested rioters.
It was made out to be an article in the Telegraph by a senior news reporter at the newspaper but a cursory search of Google revealed no such piece exists.
Musk later deleted his post – a rare backward step for the billionaire whose posts have become increasingly unhinged on his social media site.
He had written ‘Detainment Camps’…’ at 10am as he shared the post by Ashlea Simon, co-leader of far-Right group Britain First.
Meanwhile the government has implemented new measures aimed at tackling misinformation and deterring would-be criminals from instigating further violent disorder.
On Friday, the Prime Minister said that the government would review social media laws as part of those efforts.
The Telegraph reported that ministers are now looking at introducing a duty on social media companies to restrict even legal content deemed ‘harmful’.
This could mean firms would be obliged to remove or suppress posts spreading fake news or other topics ‘such as self-harm’, the newspaper reports, ‘even if they do not meet the threshold for illegality’.
Critics have branded the proposals ‘sinister and authoritarian’.
Controversially, a court in Belfast also heard this week that anybody present at a riot would be remanded in custody, even if they were only a ‘curious observer’.
District Judge Francis Rafferty said someone’s presence at a riot alone made them involved as he refused two bail applications, as reported by The Telegraph.
Cameron Armstrong, 18 from Belfast, was charged with rioting in the Connswater area of east Belfast after his solicitor argued that while his client was on the ‘periphery’ of the scene, he denied being involved in any of the rioting.
The defence solicitor said his client had gone to ‘have a look’ but left when petrol bombs were thrown.
‘He doesn’t have to throw a petrol bomb or brick to be involved in disorder, if he’s present at disorder,’ Judge Rafferty said.
‘Anybody involving themselves in this type of behaviour, this type of disorder, as an active participant or a curious observer can expect to be, save for the most exceptional circumstances, remanded into custody, and this defendant is remanded into custody.’
The full scope of this provision was unclear.
More than 700 people have now been arrested over rioting, according to the National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC), of whom more than 300 have been charged.
The NPCC has said specialist officers have now been tasked with pursuing suspected online offenders and so-called influencers, who they say are responsible for ‘spreading hate and inciting violence on a large scale’.
Across the country, teams are investigating ‘hundreds of leads’.
The NPCC’s serious and organised crime team is working with Counter Terrorism Policing and other national agencies to review content across a range of social media sites and platforms.
Online content will be assessed by a senior investigator to determine if it meets the criminal threshold and offenders will then be identified, arrested and charged.
Chief Constable Chris Haward, the NPCC lead for serious and organised crime, said inciting violence and encouraging mass disorder are ‘incredibly serious offences’.
He went on: ‘But this abhorrent activity didn’t happen by itself. Large crowds and gatherings didn’t mobilise spontaneously.
‘It was the result of dozens of so-called influencers, exploiting the outpouring of grief from the tragic loss of three young girls in Southport.
‘They knowingly spread misinformation, stoked the flames of hatred and division and incited violence from the comfort of their own homes, causing chaos on other people’s doorsteps.’