Today marks the beginning of Canada’s 19th annual Media Literacy Week, which invites teachers, students, seniors’ centres, community groups, libraries and museums across Canada to celebrate by engaging in digital media literacy activities, like drop-in tech help sessions and workshops.

This year the focus is on the potential for disinformation and misinformation perpetuated by generative AI. To that end, MediaSmarts, which runs Media Literacy Week, is bringing back a popular spokes-animal: the house hippo.

The Break the Fake house hippo campaign is funded by the Government of Canada and it’s part of MediaSmarts’ new AI literacy initiative, which includes a guide to AI funded by Meta, lesson plans for teachers, tipsheets and new educational videos.

Meta isn’t the only tech brand that’s taking part in this year’s Media Literacy Week. Amazon Canada, Bell, Google, TELUS Wise, TikTok Canada and YouTube are all sponsors of the week.

“The surge of misinformation and disinformation online is increasing, especially with the rapid advance of generative AI technologies. This global challenge threatens not only the confidence Canadians have in the media and institutions, but also in our democracy,” said Pascale St-Onge, minister of Canadian heritage. “Campaigns like MediaSmarts’ Break the Fake have a critical role to play in teaching us to examine what we see online more critically. Making people aware and mobilizing them is important so that technological innovation, including AI, happens in an ethical and responsible way, while respecting our democratic values.”

“MediaSmarts believes it’s important to teach people of all ages AI literacy skills, which are founded in media literacy,” Kathryn Ann Hill, executive director of MediaSmarts. “If we all take a moment to pause and check before we share information with our friends and family, especially when it comes to topics like politics and health, we can help stop the spread of misinformation.”

To ensure accountability, along with the campaign, MediaSmarts is also conducting a research study to test the effectiveness of the Break the Fake campaign videos, using surveys and focus groups to measure its impact on participants’ ability to recognize and respond to false information. The results will be released in 2025.