Welcome to Civics Online!

Last updated on January 7, 2021

Welcome to Civics Online, I want to introduce you to basic resources for protecting yourself online. We will discuss the crossover in protecting your digital identity and information and recognizing good sources and factual information.

The basics of digital security:

• Choose a quality (long) password or passphrase and do not reuse passwords
• Use a Password Manager to help you keep unique passwords
• Use multifactor authentication (MFA, 2FA) with your accounts – you should need a code or text message to verify your identity and log in
• Keep your machine up to date, turn on automatic updating when you first buy a phone, tablet or computer
• Do not rush. If an email or website conveys a sense of urgency, stop and THINK before you click.

Helpful Resources:

• Learning about News, Media, and Political Literacy
  • Infodemic.blog has a great, quick method for fact checking: https://infodemic.blog/
  • CRAAP Test from Benedictine University: https://researchguides.ben.edu/source-evaluation
  • Mike Caulfield’s site on Digital Literacy efforts: https://hapgood.us/
  • Avoiding Coronavirus misinformation: https://infodemic.blog/
  • Digital Polarization Initiative: https://adpaascu.wordpress.com/category/digital-polarization-initiative/
  • A Starting Point, showing different political perspectives on issues of the day: https://www.astartingpoint.com/
  • Recognizing Online Scams and Phishing from FTC: https://www.consumer.ftc.gov/articles/how-recognize-and-avoid-phishing-scams
  • Resources for teaching students news literacy: https://get.checkology.org/
• Media and News
  • Media Bias and Reliability chart: https://www.adfontesmedia.com/
  • AllSides Media Bias Chart: https://www.allsides.com/media-bias/media-bias-chart
  • News literacy for kids: https://www.commonsensemedia.org/blog/news-literacy-101
• Latest Scams and Threats:
  • FTC: https://www.consumer.ftc.gov/features/scam-alerts
  • FBI’s IC3 latest: https://www.ic3.gov/Home/ConsumerAlerts
  • IRS: https://www.irs.gov/privacy-disclosure/report-phishing
  • Threatpost: https://threatpost.com/
• Fact-checking sites
  • Snopes, checking news and rumors: https://www.snopes.com/
  • Truth or Fiction: https://www.truthorfiction.com/
  • The Annenberg Public Policy Center Fact checking: https://www.factcheck.org/
  • Politifact for politics: https://www.politifact.com/

I hope you find this information helpful. Reach out if you have any questions, or would like to see us address a specific topic.