Maybe share this episode with your uncle, who posted some weird stuff last week. Or your grandma. Or your dad. Our older relatives are being fed a diet of digital lies, and it's our fault, collectively. In the middle of a big push for digital literacy, we've focused on teaching children and adolescents how to sniff out scams and misinformation online, and largely ignored the elderly people among us.
The numbers show us that was a huge mistake. Four new studies have each found that seniors are far more likely to share fake news online. Many of them have trouble distinguishing legitimate sites from fraudulent ones. Others are targeted in scams by criminals who know they are easier marks. So how can we bring digital literacy to our parents and grandparents, aunts and uncles, moms and dads? It doesn't start with replying to their latest weird meme. It starts in person. And this is an election year, so there's a deadline looming.
GUEST: Craig Silverman, BuzzFeed News