Lesson 1: Online Reputation
Before you start the lesson, make sure to read through the lesson overview and the lesson preparation. The Facilitator Guide can also help you prepare.
Lesson Overview
Students will consider how publicly available online information helps form others’ opinions about them. They will identify audiences for different types of online communication, consider what information they want to appear when someone searches for their name, and learn various ways to respond to internet content about them they do not like.
Lesson Preparation
ESTIMATED TIME
ESSENTIAL QUESTION
- Based on information about you online, how can you shape the ways other people perceive you?
MATERIALS
- “What Should You Do?” Handout
- “What Should You Do?” Handout - Educator’s Copy
PREPARATION
- Print one handout per student.
- Students will need internet access for this lesson.
- There are several opportunities to localize content to your students’ experience and local context. These opportunities are flagged as “Teacher’s Notes” throughout. We suggest you read through the lesson ahead of time and prepare the examples before the lesson begins.
OPTIONAL: ISTE DIGCITCOMMIT COMPETENCY
- INCLUSIVE: I am open to hearing and respectfully recognizing multiple viewpoints and I engage with others online with respect and empathy.
Who Knows Your Secrets?
Part 1
TELL YOUR STUDENTS
What is a secret you have about yourself? Keep this secret in your mind. You won’t have to share this secret with anyone or write it down.
Now answer these questions in your own mind — don’t speak your answers out loud or write them down:
- How many people in this room know the secret?
- How many people in your neighborhood know the secret?
- How many people that you have never met face to face know the secret?
TELL YOUR STUDENTS
Imagine that you had to write down that secret on a piece of paper and one random person in this group was to read it.
Here are some more questions — again, answer them only in your mind, not out loud or in writing. After one week goes by:
- How many people in this room would now know the secret?
- How many people in your neighborhood would now know the secret?
- How many people that you have never met face to face would now know the secret?
Part 2
TELL YOUR STUDENTS
You need to think of people who are likely to see a secret or other piece of information about you as “the audience” for that information. Having a better sense of the audience may help you more easily determine the information you feel comfortable sharing and what to not share with others.
An audience is made up of a person or a group of people that can access a particular piece of information. With new technologies today, audiences can grow very quickly. Because of this potential for rapid audience growth, it’s difficult — if not impossible — for you to know or limit the audience for your online information and activities. While it’s great that audiences can grow quickly when you want to share your work with a lot of people, it’s not great when this happens with information that you want to keep private.
Unfortunately, private information — especially embarrassing information — is often exciting to people when they see it, so once this type of information is out there online, it can be very challenging to control who sees this content.
Whenever you share information online (even just directly with one person, like in a text or private message), you should be prepared for the possibility that it may spread well beyond the audience you intended to reach.
Part 3
ASK YOUR STUDENTS
- When you post a status update, photo, or other information on social media, who is your intended audience?
- Does it depend on the social media platform? Or the context?
TELL YOUR STUDENTS
It depends on your privacy settings as well as the social media platform you choose, but your audience could include just your closest friends/followers/connections or be broad enough to include anyone who uses that social media platform or anyone who searches for you online. But no matter who the audience is, information can be copied and posted somewhere else, someone can take a photo/screenshot of the content, or information can be shared through in-person and online conversations.
ASK YOUR STUDENTS
- Who is your intended audience when you add content on social media?
- Who is your intended audience when, for example, you post on someone else’s Facebook timeline or when you add content to another person’s social media account (e.g., by commenting on one of their photos, tagging them in a post or photo)?
TELL YOUR STUDENTS
This will depend on both your and their privacy settings, but often the content will be visible to their friends/followers/connections, which will include people you don’t know — this might include their family members or administrators, or teachers at their school.
ASK YOUR STUDENTS
- When you send a message (e.g., text, email, private/direct message on social media), who is your intended audience?
TELL YOUR STUDENTS
Your audience is the person you’re sending it to but be careful — others might see it as well.
ASK YOUR STUDENTS
- How can your message reach people other than the person you sent it to? Possible ways include through photos/screenshots, forwarding, and in-person phone sharing.
- In which cases might reaching a larger audience be useful? Possible examples include hoping to spread a message to a large audience, mobilizing people, or raising awareness.
- In which cases could reaching a bigger audience than intended be problematic? Sharing beyond the intended audience can get you in trouble, cause embarrassment, reputational harms.
- What are some situations where maintaining a good online reputation might be important? Possible examples include school/college/university applications, job applications, and making new friends.
Researching your Reputation
Part 1
CLASS INTERACTION
The teacher chooses a public figure (e.g., someone in the music/film/TV industry, political figure, business leader) who will be familiar to the students. Look up the person’s name on an online search engine and, with students, examine a few of the items that come up (please project search results on a screen). Also, explore the public figure’s social media presence. After spending a few minutes exploring, ask two students to act out a hypothetical interaction between the public figure and a fan.
ASK YOUR STUDENTS
- How does it feel encountering someone who knows a lot of information about you?
- How would you feel if that information was incorrect?
- How many people can access this information?
- How can you control what information about you is available online?
Part 2
TELL YOUR STUDENTS
People you meet will use search engines to obtain more information about you. What they find, good or bad, is going to impact what they think about you. If you want to be able to have control over how they perceive you, it is important for you to know what information they are likely to see.
These people include future employers and school/ college/university admissions officers. Admissions officers may not inform applicants of whether they looked them up online and/or used the information they found online to help make admissions decisions.
Part 3
CLASS INTERACTION
Organize students into pairs.
TELL YOUR STUDENTS
Brainstorm three things you would want to come up when someone searches for your name online. How likely do you think it is that these things will actually appear in the search results? Share with your partner.
ASK YOUR STUDENTS
- What did you and your partner come up with?
- Raise your hand if you have searched for your name online. What did you see? What photos come up? Were you able to find information about yourself, or are there other people in the world who share your name?
Teacher's NoteIf they have a common name, ask students to add a piece of information to their searches, such as their hometown or their school's name.
You can also ask students to Google themselves/search for their name online during this activity if computers or mobile devices with internet access are available.
ASK YOUR STUDENTS
- When you search for your name online, ask these four questions:
- What are the first few results?
- Are you comfortable with this information?
- What do the other results suggest about who you are as a person? As a student? As an employee?
- What impression might someone who doesn’t know you develop upon seeing these results? What impression might they have if they clicked and read the information contained in the first few results?
Responding to Complex Information
CLASS INTERACTION
Pass out the “What should you do?” resource. Organize students into pairs. Ask students to discuss the scenarios on the worksheet and come up with two strategies/solutions for each scenario and think about the potential consequences of their actions. Give them 15 minutes to do this.
Teacher's NoteThe handouts are intended to teach students to think critically about their online behaviors and how they treat others. The names and situations in the handouts can be further localized to reflect common names and activities in the area you are teaching. For example:
- Ethiopia: Samira, Meskerem, Hiwot, and Lidya
- Kenya: Chebet
- Zambia: Yonah and Abigail
ASK YOUR STUDENTS
- What should you do when someone posts content about you that you don’t like and/or find inappropriate in that context?
- What should you think about before posting content about someone else?
Responding to Negative Information
Part 1
ASK YOUR STUDENTS
- If you find negative information about yourself when you search for your name online (e.g., through a search engine or on social media), can you do something about it?
- What are some examples of content you might not want others to see?
Part 2
TELL YOUR STUDENTS
There are different approaches as to what can be done if you encounter online content about yourself that you don’t like, depending on the context and the type of information, among other factors. One approach is “counter-speech,” which means to draw attention/give more visibility to positive stories about yourself by creating and managing content that reflects you in a positive light. You can do this, for example, by creating a social media presence when appropriate, starting a blog, or registering a website based on your name.
A second approach includes different measures to have negative content removed. For instance, if you see content you do not like (e.g., a photo of you), you can try to reach out directly to the individual who posted it (particularly on social media and/or messaging apps) to ask him or her to remove the content.
Many platforms also provide interfaces to flag information that you feel is annoying or not interesting; content (e.g., photos, videos, text-based posts) that shows you in a negative/unflattering light; content that shouldn’t be on the platform (e.g., seems offensive, violent or prohibited); and content that appears to be a scam. The platform then checks it against its terms of service and community norms.
In some cases, you might have legal remedies and can, for instance, file a lawsuit in a court of law, depending on jurisdiction and applicable law (e.g., in some cases of invasion of privacy or false statements that damage someone’s reputation). Some countries have specific laws that require platforms to take down certain types of unlawful content upon notification (e.g., Kenya Information and Communications Act (Amendments of 2019)).
Teacher's NoteThis example is intended to educate students about the laws governing social media platforms and data in their country. The laws governing social media platforms and data protection can be further localized to reflect your student’s local context in the area you are teaching. For example:
- Kenya: The Kenya Information and Communications Act (Amendments of 2019) specifically regulates social media networks/platforms.
- Nigeria: In Nigeria, every citizen has a right to data privacy as derived from Section 37 of the 1999 Constitution. This is an actionable right, meaning that you can sue when this right has been breached.
- Zambia: In Zambia, the Cyber Security and Cyber Crimes Bill, 2021.
Please also note that sometimes attempting to suppress/remove/correct content might inadvertently draw greater attention to it.
Part 3
Teacher's NoteIn Part 3, discuss any laws and regulations around data protection in your country or region that may be relevant for your students. This example is intended to educate students about the laws governing social media platforms and data in their country, so they can be more informed digital citizens. For example:
- Kenya: Kenya's first data protection law went into force on the 25th November 2019. The Act gives effect to Article 31(c) and (d) of the Constitution of Kenya, 2010 which enshrines the right to privacy. The Act provides for the data subject's right to the correction of false or misleading data, to deletion of false or misleading data, and to updating their data, similar to the GDPR in the European Union. The data controller or processor has an obligation to provide means for the data subject to make requests for rectification. The message in Section 26, 27, 29, and 30 is needed for informed consent before data processing. A data subject has to be informed of their data collection, and all the parties the data has been or will be transferred to, including details of the safety precautions put in place. Kenya 's national policy on data protection informs on the management of personal data in the information lifecycle and the commitment of the Kenya Government to protect the personal data including personal sensitive data.
- Nigeria: There is data protection regulation in Nigeria called the Nigeria Data Protection Regulation (NDPR) issued by the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) in January 2019 to regulate and check the collection, processing, and storage of the data of Nigerian citizens and residents. The regulation also applies to all natural persons residing in Nigeria or residing outside Nigeria but of Nigerian descent. While the NDPR does not have a list of derogations (an exemption from or a relaxation of a rule or law), your right to privacy under the Nigerian 1999 Constitution can be waived for the public interest, national security, public health, and the defense of a legal claim. So, while Section 37 of the Constitution provides that the privacy of citizens, their homes, correspondence, and telephone conversations communications are hereby guaranteed and protected, Section 45 of the Constitution provides that the right to private life can be dispensed with for public interest and for the protection of the rights and the freedoms of other persons. There are also other pieces of legislation that have various sections that speak to data protection for citizens of Nigeria, an example is Section 8 of the Child Rights Act of 2003 and The Consumer Protection Framework of 2016. All of these are aimed at ensuring that your right to have your data kept safe, to have your data used for lawful purposes, to obtain information about how your data is being used, and to have personal data corrected and/or deleted are upheld.
- Zambia: In Zambia, we have our own rights which stipulate that we have a right to not let our data be stored online and have the right to ask for it to be taken down.
Assignment
TELL YOUR STUDENTS
Now that we have talked about how publicly available online information helps form opinions about other people let’s apply what you’ve just learned. Over the next 30 minutes, individually, engage in the following activity.
Choose a public figure (e.g., someone in the music/film/TV industry, political figure, business leader). Search for publicly available information about that person online and explain, in a short paragraph, how this information has helped you form an opinion about this person. If you could provide this individual with four recommendations about how content about them could be available online differently (e.g., a change in privacy settings, a change in audience, a change in the substance of the content) and/or not be available at all (e.g., deleted, have taken down) to improve how this person presents themselves/is perceived by others online, what would they be?
Give students 30 minutes to finish the assignment.
Congrats!
You've finished the lesson
Source:
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