Teaching Digital Literacy with Deepfakes: A Classroom Unit Plan

Turn the Bluesky/X deepfake drama into a teachable moment — fast

Pain point: Students are flooded with AI-generated images, videos, and text, and teachers need classroom-ready lessons that build practical detection skills, source evaluation habits, and creative counter-misinformation responses. This modular unit uses the high-profile Bluesky/X deepfake controversy from late 2025–early 2026 as a real-world case study to teach those exact skills.

Why this matters in 2026

In late 2025 and early 2026, mainstream platforms faced public scrutiny when AI tools were used to create and spread non-consensual, sexualized imagery. The controversy around X's integrated AI bot and the ensuing public investigation in early 2026 made headlines and drove a surge in downloads for alternative platforms such as Bluesky. That surge illustrates two trends educators must address:

• Synthetic media is mainstream.
• Platform response varies. Some platforms add features for provenance and community verification, while others lag — creating an uneven information landscape.

Teaching digital literacy now means teaching students how to spot manipulations, evaluate sources and platform signals, and create evidence-based counter-messaging.

Unit overview: Goals, grade levels, and pacing

This modular unit is built to be adaptable: run it as a 1-week intensive (5 class periods) or a multi-week project (6–8 sessions) depending on time and student level.

• Target grades: Middle school (grades 7–8), High school (grades 9–12), Intro college classes.
• Core skills: deepfake detection, source evaluation, media literacy, ethical reasoning, and multimedia project design.
• Learning objectives:
• Identify common visual, audio, and contextual indicators of synthetic media.
• Apply a four-step source-evaluation checklist to social posts and news items.
• Design and publish a short counter-misinformation project that demonstrates verification and clear communication.

Module-by-module lesson plan (flexible 6–8 session unit)

Session 1 — Hook and context (45–60 minutes)

Goal: Engage students with the current event framing and surface prior knowledge and concerns.

1. Begin with a short, neutral summary of the Bluesky/X incident as a case study — emphasize platform dynamics and the human harms (non-consensual imagery, privacy violations, and the public investigation in early 2026).
2. Class discussion: How often do students see images or videos they doubt? Which apps? (5–10 minutes)
3. Quick poll activity: Have students rate on a 1–5 scale how confident they are spotting deepfakes.
4. Introduce the unit roadmap and explain the final project: students will produce a counter‑misinformation piece (fact-check thread, short video, poster, or classroom PSA).

Session 2 — Anatomy of a deepfake (60 minutes)

Goal: Teach the technical and visual clues used to detect synthetic media.

Teacher demo: Show short examples of manipulated and authentic clips (use safe, consented materials). Walk through visual/audio cues:

• Facial micro-expressions and unnatural blinking
• Unstable or mismatched lighting and shadows
• Artifacts around hair, ears, and teeth
• Audio mismatches: lip-sync errors, unnatural cadence, or robotic timbre
• Temporal inconsistencies in backgrounds and reflections

Activity: In small groups, students analyze 3 short clips using a printable detection checklist (see