As parents, we hear about fake news all the time but have you ever thought about how easy it is in this digital age to manufacture fake news?  I just received some education on this and yes, there’s an App for that. It turns out that it’s very easy to use apps to create fake news.

I got the Boomerang Parental Control daily report for my 14 year old’s usage yesterday and under ‘Recently Installed Apps’, I saw an App that concerned me: Fake Chat (Direct Message)!  I looked up what Fake Chat does and it creates a real-looking chat thread between any two people that you want, for example Justin Trudeau and  Donald Trump. It was installed at 2:34 pm and then uninstalled at 2:41pm so I’m sure that my son was just checking it out, likely based on the chatter of school friends or simple curiosity.

I have chatted with my kids about how to identify fake news, and to question news that “just doesn’t make sense.” Last year when Donald Trump was running for President, my daughter who is 10, told me that she does not like Donald Trump since he called Canadians “snow mexicans.”  I said that there was no way that he would ever really say that, and that it  was fake news, so we went to Google and found the Snopes article debunking the myth and explaining how it started with a fake tweet.  There are many fake tweet Apps available including one that is called Fake Trump Tweet Generator.

The potential for kids to use apps that generate fake news has dangerous implications, because they are likely not going to use them to create humor or to make fun of politicians or celebrities.They would likely use them to make fun of each other, which would be a form of cyber bullying.  As a parent, the last thing that I want to have is my son ever generating fake news about his classmates.  We had a chat about this and he understands the consequences.

It makes me think about the importance of our tag line: “Helping Parents parent their family’s technology use”. Boomerang’s daily report definitely helps me be a better parent by showing me what’s out there, what my kids are using, and what trends are current. It also enables me to engage in a conversation with my son about serious topics, which has never been more important in this digital age.