When thinking about the different risks and opportunities that Artificial Intelligence (AI) introduces for digital citizenship, I fear the many risks outweigh any potential benefits. The mass integration of AI into news, social media, and search engines has absolutely dismantled any sense of trust or authenticity online. The article by MediaSmarts backs this up, reporting that two thirds of Canadians were exposed to deepfakes online just last year, with one third reporting that they themselves had used Generative AI (MediaSmarts, 2025). These numbers have doubled from the year previous.

Reading these statistics made me think about the Dead Internet Theory, or the idea that so much of the web is made up by AI bots interacting with other AI bots, that there is no room for humans online. Or, as Compute View (2025) puts it: “The internet is dead and we killed it.”

It is more important than ever to have strong media literacy skills in order to continue navigating the internet and discerning which content is AI-generated, misinformation, or enforcing extremist narratives. MediaSmarts (2025) highlights the importance of going “Wait…What?” when reading something online, rather than just taking it at face value as the truth.

Generative AI can, will, and HAS harmed people and children. Canada’s new national “AI for All” strategy aims to encourage information around AI and develop AI literacy in students, teachers, and citizens alike. While I think this is a great idea, I still believe that we need more federal policies which LIMIT AI use. While it is important that Canadians have an understanding of how to critically evaluate what they read online, it’s more important to have legal limits on using AI for deepfakes/impersonations, spreading misinformation, or, most importantly, for using AI (and all of our fresh water!) for no reason at all.

There is still no way to turn off automatic-AI search results on school chromebooks. I would say that’s a Step One change for aiding with AI literacy in schools. In my experience, in a Grade 8 practicum, the moment technology was involved, all critical thinking went out the window. The easy-A of AI is too addictive. Even on a creative writing project (a single paragraph, mind you), half of the class used AI. It is time to switch to a pen-and-paper curriculum.

One of the absolutely most despising uses of AI targets female public figures online, generating non-consensual explicit videos. This happens everyday to women, to children. Security Hero (2023) reports that deepfake pornography makes up 98% of all deepfake videos online, with 99% of the targets being women, most commonly in the entertainment industry. Laura Bates (2025) explains that this is a “digital manifestation of a larger offline truth: men target women for gendered violence and abuse.”

One example of this happened to Nina Jankowicz, an author and Top 100 Most Influential People in Artificial Intelligence (TIME, 2023). Although she is from the USA, this is a case that affects ALL women, especially those in the public eye. Jankowicz (2023) explains that this experience made her understand that “AI’s relationship with gender and women is adversarial” and that non-consensual deepfakes are used as a “strategic attack to denigrate, undermine, and embarrass women online.”

In 2023 and 2024, in Nova Scotia, a man was found taking photos of girls, using AI to take off their clothes, and share these online. He was acquitted because the AI images did not “meet the current legal definition of intimate images” (Rhodes, 2026). This definition was changed less than two months ago with the Protecting Victims Act. Many consider this change to be too little, too late, with Judge Bronwyn Duffy stating that “the law does not reflect the technology that exists today” (Hounsell, 2026).

While Canada’s AI for All strategy promises to “protect Canadians and children against the risks from AI and online harms” there are no actual ways to prevent non-consensual deepfake pornography from being created (Lopez Steven, 2026). With AI becoming more and more common, and no real protections being put in place, it is clear that women and children will continue to be harrassed through AI technology.

If I were to create a curriculum segment on media/AI literacy, I would call back to the MediaSmarts (2021) video: “What’s Real Online?” I would use the following three questions provided to teach students how to verify that something they read, see, or watch online is real:

  • Where did it come from?
  • Is it coming from a reliable source?
  • Has somebody debunked it already?

As a class, we would evaluate examples of both real and AI content in the form of both social media posts and websites online. I would do this sort of exercise every week, gradually increasing the difficulty and allowing students to work individually, in small groups, or as a class to determine whether or not something is AI.

Privacy Compliance

As an educator, I think that teaching data privacy comes hand-in-hand with AI literacy. With the boom of using chromebooks in the classroom, more students than ever are being used for data online. I think that Canada’s push for further AI education will help students and families understand the risks associated with using the internet, but as an educator, it is critical to do your own research on platforms students will be using in your classroom, rather than just blindly trusting them. I also wonder, do we really need so much technology in the classroom? Student data and privacy is safe on pen-and-paper. Why risk it?

While I fully intend to teach my future students about the risks of AI, I simply don’t see how using it (other than to teach AI literacy with) fits into the curriculum. It is not worth killing our planet. Don’t you love the Earth?