The online world of today offers both possibilities and challenges, increasingly requiring critical thinking to distinguish between truth and lies. One has to tell the real news and videos from the fake ones at election campaigns, to distinguish fake online shops from the real ones, and recognize catfishing attempts in budding relationships. The aim of our paper is to discuss pedagogical and ethical challenges online, using the deliberately created fake accounts as a tool to teach students critical thinking and other digital survival skills. In 2018 and 2019 we carried out an exercise for M.Sc. students (a 50 in each year) involving the creation of fake accounts based on prescribed data. We mapped the developed skills and knowledge, analyzing the legal and ethical aspects of the process (also involving external experts, e.g. physical and cybersecurity specialists, lawyers, educational technologists). We conclude that fake accounts as a learning tool can be a powerful measure to activate new ways of ‘out of the box’ thinking necessary for both cybersecurity experts and common citizens in an information society.
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