**1. Introduction**

In the summer of 2018, a Facebook user uploaded a moving story that caught the eye of people on the social platform as well as the media. The post presented the efforts of a Romanian that saved more than 70 lives from the Greece wildfires, which were a widely publicized event at the time. The author stated that the "hero" was hospitalized in Vienna with 70% body surface burns. A photo of the man's burnt face had gone viral. It was only a few days later that the story was pointed out to be fake and the photo was proven to show actor Ryan Reynolds wearing makeup for his role in the movie Deadpool [1]. This is far from a singular incident of fake news being spread through Facebook, indicating the fact that it is not necessary for a story to be extremely detailed or particularly credible for it to have an impact.

Today, more than ever in the history of mankind, the process of acquiring information is simpler, being facilitated by the Internet. Social media platforms are now preferred by individuals in terms of acquiring information, due to their quick and easy access. This means that the diffusion of data spread is almost instant, helping fake news reach a remarkable number of people. The free and effortless access to information also brings up an urgen<sup>t</sup> need for fact checking. Thus, to be certain of the accuracy of the information, it is imperative that people assess the online news they come across and consider to be noteworthy. Consequently, the issue of people's ability to distinguish fake news from truthful

information arises, the case of young people being an important one, as this age group is extremely exposed to online information.

Even though multiple studies have been conducted on schoolchildren around the world [2–7], fake news has only recently been approached [8,9] from a Romanian children (especially high school students) perspective. This study seeks to add to the academic examination of the fake news phenomenon and to the study of children's ability to identify fake news. It addresses these issues through an exploratory research, using a one-group post-test only quasi-experimental design, mixed with qualitative debriefing sessions. The findings revealed that even though only 4 of the 54 students stated that they would not save a fake animal, thus indicating they did not trust the hoax source, all 4 of them had reasons that proved the contrary. The children and adolescents proved that they would act upon being exposed to fake information even when they do not trust the source.

This article initially examines the scholarly perspectives on fake news and the particular ways individuals—especially young people—perceive this phenomenon, followed by the second section of the article presenting the Methods and Materials and comparing the results of the experiment conducted in the Romanian study in 2019 with the results of the 2017 study conducted in The Netherlands. The paper ends with a discussion of the findings and suggestions regarding the manners in which people could handle fake news.

### **2. Literature Review**

#### *2.1. Digital Literacy and Fake News*

The existence and rapid evolution of digital media have led to the development of new ways of thinking, obtaining information, learning, and relating to others. Today, the way people born in the last four decades process things in terms of internalizing information is profoundly di fferent from that of those who were of mature age when new communication and information technologies were introduced into everyday life [10]. This dissimilarity is mainly a result of the way the newer generations grew up surrounded by ICT.

Digital natives, the term introduced by Prensky [10,11] and later critiqued by scholars, stands for people born after the 1980s, who are fluent in the online language of computers, and that have "e-lives" that revolve around the Internet. One of the matters most discussed by scholars regarding digital natives refers to their critical thinking ability when assessing online information. Some authors even define the concept of digital natives, emphasizing rather low results when taking into consideration the critical thinking ability of this generation, which uses "the digital tools of today, without reflecting on what they are or how they can be used" [12] (p. 23). Internet access leads to a major change in both the information process and the way in which individuals use information after retrieving it. Some authors [13–18] disagree with the use of the digital natives and digital immigrants concepts. Their research confirms the contrary and shows that the perspectives claiming that people who grew up surrounded by digital media "are universally savvy with information and communication technologies" are rarely founded on empirical evidence [15] (p. 92).

Research conducted by Hargittai [15] demonstrates that socioeconomic status is an important predictor for the inclusion of the Internet in day to day life, with those from more privileged backgrounds using it in more activities and in a more informed way. Similarly, Gallardo-Echenique et al. [18] state that age is not as important a factor as gender, education, experience, social inclusion, culture, institutional context, and socioeconomic context and sugges<sup>t</sup> the use of digital learners instead of digital natives.

The issue of individuals' ability to adequately evaluate and use information has become more pronounced, as the access to both acquiring and sharing information is the easiest it has been yet. This is not a concern particular to the digital age, as there has always been a need to properly analyze the reliability of information, which has been essential for learning even before the information revolution. However, individuals are now constantly in contact with online information—not di fficult to influence and share—so the ability to analytically assess information can be viewed as a "survival skill" [19].

With recent decades' development of the digital environment, individuals are increasingly required to improve their ability to use new technologies in order to perform e ffectively in society. Generally speaking, a digitally literate individual "should be able to adapt to new and emerging technologies quickly, and pick up easily new semiotic languages for communication as they arise" [20] (p. 1066). While most approaches that describe young people as being digitally literate discuss their ability to easily use new digital technologies, only some of these perspectives question their ability to critically analyze information obtained through these technologies [10,21,22].

Digital literacy has been defined as the "awareness, attitude and ability of individuals to appropriately use digital tools and facilities to identify, access, manage, integrate, evaluate, analyze and synthesize digital resources, construct new knowledge, create media expressions, and communicate with others, in the context of specific life situations, in order to enable constructive social action; and to reflect upon this process" [21] (p. 135). Using such approach, we can find a direct link between the concept of digital literacy, analytical thinking ability, and the intention to create constructive social actions. This approach thus suggests that critical thinking, the ability to objectively analyze information retrieved online, and the aptitude to form independent opinions should be among the central features of digital literacy.

Ng [20] is also one of the authors who paid attention to critical thinking in discussing digital literacy, proposing a multidimensional model. The cognitive dimension of the model is associated with critical thinking in the case of the search, evaluation, and content creation processes. This dimension requires that the individual has knowledge about the ethical and legal issues that one must respect when using content from digital sources (e.g., copyright and plagiarism). According to Ng, digital literacy involves using the filter of one's own thinking when retrieving information in the online environment, the individual having varied knowledge to help him critically analyze the information.

Digital literacy includes a set of soft skills that need to target both technical skills—the use of digital tools—and non-technical skills that rather consist of understanding, analyzing, and evaluating information (cognitive, socioemotional etc.). Thus, it would be appropriate for the term to be used "to speak of a full range of cognitive, social and emotional competences including the use of texts, tools and technologies; about critical thinking and analytical skills" [23] (p. 17).

There are significant dissimilarities between people of di fferent ages or even between people in the same age segmen<sup>t</sup> when talking about digital literacy, so categorizing people as digitally literate or illiterate based solely on age would be inappropriate. However, digital literacy, as a set of skills including both technical abilities that allow people to use new technologies and non-technical skills that help individuals assess the information they retrieve online while acting like a polygraph for untruthful or manipulative information is crucial for people of all ages in today's society.

Fake news has existed over time in various forms since the proliferation of untrue information through word of mouth. It has then progressively become easier and quicker for people to be reached by information—reliable or fake—once printing was invented and today, with the almost omnipresent use of the Internet.

Fake news is a concept that can be defined as verifiable untrue information, intentionally transmitted by one person to mislead other individuals [24,25]. Social media is becoming the main source of information for an increasing number of individuals, so "misinformation seems to have found a new channel" [26] (p. 138). Research looking at fake news dissemination [5,27] showed results that are increasingly unsettling. In a recent study, Lazer et al. [27] noted that on Twitter, fake information is usually reposted by more people and much faster than truthful information is, especially in the case of politics news. Similarly, an eleven years-long study [5] that investigated the distribution of both true and false information on Twitter revealed that fake data spreading is quicker and reaches more individuals than accurate information. The authors also noted that false information was more

common than truthful in most of the cases, which caused people to distribute fake news more often in comparison to true information.

Tandoc et al. [26] explain why they consider financial and ideological reasons and motives are the two motives underlying the spread of false information. Fake news often touches upon scandalous topics, which quickly go viral online, thus attracting clicks that convert into revenue. A website that constantly o ffers intriguing information, discussing controversial topics, becomes appealing to individuals; the large number of publication visits is converted into financial gains following the exposure of these visitors to paid advertisements on the site.

Allcott and Gentzkow [25] analyze the ideological motivation of individuals and claim that they use fake news in order to convey certain ideas or to promote people, often implying the reputation of other entities being compromised. The authors note that individuals driven by financial motivations are considerably more numerous than those who have ideological goals. Allcott and Gentzkow [25] have observed that, in most cases, the dissemination of fake news is related to their content. Thus, news with political content have a noteworthy potential to attract clicks and generate profits—the authors explain this idea by talking about a group of young people from Macedonia, which made tens of thousands of dollars in 2016, after they shared false information during the US election campaign.

Social networks have thus become an environment where almost anyone can provide information to an extremely large number of people, an environment where both credible sources and fake news can be found; the distinction between them is di fficult to distinguish and di fficult to achieve. Fake news, like real news, has gone viral on social media. Although we can measure the number of individuals who have been exposed to fake news or those who have distributed fake news, we cannot determine how many people have actually read or been a ffected by this type of information. Nevertheless, the spread of fake news can be amplified by social media, as individuals who retrieve and distribute information implicitly approve it [27].

Fake news is a phenomenon that gains credibility by hiding behind the mask of legitimacy, so that people tend not to question it. People are often inclined to consider fake news to be true, as it closely mimics the structure of truthful news and sometimes even refers to fictitious sources in order to provide a sense of reliability [26]. A study conducted in 2016 [6] showed that young people are unable to distinguish between the real Twitter account of the American TV channel Fox News and one that faultily imitates it. Thus, the influence of fake news on Internet users is not surprising, as it is essential that people have/develop the ability to think critically in order to be able to distinguish between true and false information. Domonoske [6] presents a research conducted at Stanford University on the ability of people to identify fake news. As anticipated in the study's title—Students Have 'Dismaying' Inability to Tell Fake News From Real, Study Finds—the results show that from middle schoolers to college students, children and teenagers have limited ability to tell whether information is fake or real. The majority of the 7800 people who were part of the research failed to indicate which of the information was false. Moreover, most of the study participants accepted the information provided as true, without checking if the sources were reliable.

Domonoske [6] concludes by stating that if young people are the future, the future might be ill-informed, and—one could also state—not skillful enough when it comes to critical thinking. Fake information is widely shared by young people who often do this without assessing it, but the responsibility cannot be fully attributed to them because they were not taught to do di fferently, argues the study's author.

The fake news phenomenon became more visible in 2016, in the context of the presidential elections in the United States. Since then, Facebook and Google have made public reassurances regarding their e ffort on providing solutions that would fight the threat posed by this phenomenon [28]. Although social platforms and search engines strive to limit or even stop false information, this process is di fficult and time-consuming, so people using the Internet need to be able to evaluate and identify manipulated information.

#### *2.2. Fake News Identifying Processes*

Even though fake news' negative e ffects are known or can be perceived, the solutions to these problems are more di fficult to identify. Most of the scholarly approaches that discuss fake news and the measures that can be taken to limit this phenomenon propose two directions—technological solutions, targeting especially social media platforms [28,29] and guidance for human fake news identification [24,26,29,30].

Technological advancement nowadays is inevitable; consequently, di fferent companies are trying to o ffer technological solutions to stop the spread of false information in the digital environment. Even if today's artificial intelligence would have the ability to fully filter out fake news, Waldrop [29] argues this process would be di fficult because of the free speech right. It is extremely problematic for online platforms to draw a boundary between what is admitted as true information and what is rejected as being fake news, because there is a sensitive border between stopping fake news in the online environment and violating the right to free expression, the author explains.

The digital natives and digital immigrants concepts proposed by Prensky have been debunked, but in his work on the di fferences between today's students and past generations, the author [11] discusses how young people have adapted to the 21st century, while schools still use a twentieth-century model when approaching the informing process, thus "most digital skills and knowledge are developed outside of formal education" [20] (p. 1066). This is a valid point of view particularly in the case of Romania, where technology is not used enough in the educational process; the consequences have been observed especially recently, when due to the pandemic lockdown, online schooling was a controversial topic [31], as in some cases, the digital environment has not been used properly by teachers and because new technologies are not widely used in Romanian teaching. The negative e ffects of the fake news phenomenon on both individuals and society have led to the emergence of new school and university courses. Media literacy courses are proliferating worldwide at all educational levels. Through the "Calling Bullshit" course at the University of Washington, students are taught how to detect misleading images or false statistical data, while the Italian Ministry of Education has organized a digital literacy course in eight thousand high schools to help students identify fake news [29].

Learning from the online analyzing process of some of the most prestigious journalists and fact-checking organizations in the US, McGrew et al. [28] propose three strategies that teachers could adapt to help pupils and students become smarter users of the Internet.

The first strategy involves realizing teaching young people to read "laterally"—checking the credibility of a source not only "vertically" by analyzing the elements found on the site (design, logo, references at the end of the article etc.), but to also search other web pages to find out more about the credibility of the analyzed source. Teachers could also help students make smarter search results selections, the authors suggest. When hurriedly looking for online sources, people tend to click on the first shown result, which could greatly influence the quality and truthfulness of the retrieved information. However, when choosing a source, individuals need to consider various issues, including the URL (source web address) and snippets of text that describe the site. The third method proposed by McGrew et al. [28] refers to the use of the Wikipedia site as an example in exercises that involve comparing true information with false information and especially when practicing lateral reading.

Through their work on the pedagogic approaches of the fake news phenomenon, McDougall et al. [32] collected and disseminated the findings of relevant research, of which the main purpose has been to propose an educational "preventative antidote" to the fake news threat. In a study [33] on 1676 university students and 524 professors in Brazil, Spain, Portugal, and Venezuela, Romero-Rodriguez et al. show that the findings "point to a is a need to develop transversal actions for instructing both university professors and students in media competences to face an ecosystem dominated by fake news and disinformation, as well as public policies directed at improving these skills among citizens at large" [33] (p. 326). In the process of instructing teachers about the fake news phenomenon and the ways they could adapt the information for their students, there is some relevant research proposing various materials to refer to [34–36] when teaching students of all education levels.

Some other recent studies [37,38] propose legislative measures as well as placing more emphasis on truthful alternatives of the fake stories. Nonetheless, all legal measures should be carefully stated, as they could rather easily become a threat to freedom of speech. This has been the case of the German Network Enforcement Act [39], critiqued by the UN's Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Expression, which stated that the legal procedure could potentially have greater effects than censorship [37] (p. 3).

#### **3. Children and Adolescents' Ability to Identify Fake News in Other Studies**

Over the years, several authors researched students' ability to identify fake news. The study conducted by Leu et al. [4] in the US was the first to propose the use of the hoax website http: //zapatopi.net/treeoctopus in fake news research. This has then been used as inspiration by other studies [2,3] in The Netherlands and in the US. Both the results (Table 1) and the studies' designs (Table 2) were different, whilst all of them show low results in school children's ability to identify hoax sources.




**Table2.**MethodologyusedinstudiespresentedinTable 1.

#### **4. Materials and Methods**
