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Health Minister Ong Ye Kung has encouraged Singaporeans to take the new bivalent Covid-19 vaccine, and warned of falsehoods that are circulating about the XBB variant ( , Oct 11). Social media is awash with disinformation. Well-meaning warnings like Mr Ong's are not enough when the social media platforms, from which many garner their news and form their views, are letting fake and pseudoscientific posts slip through their policing. It always helps to have a government that the people trust, and publicly available health statistics to prove that vaccination works. Just where does Singapore stand as far as media literacy goes? Anecdotally, not far, and the reason for this is that media literacy is not formally established from our formative years. Just how often do we cross check for truth using multiple sources, assess accuracy by looking for clues in articles' tone and language, recognise fake news by spotting biases or ask questions when skewed figures are presented? Has it been inculcated in us the social responsibility of verifying the trustworthiness of information before we press the "forward" button? In school, media literacy should be as important as writing, reading and mathematics. The Nordic countries, Finland in particular, promote this in their curriculum for children, and attain high standings in how even their young can spot that which is not quite right. Bringing this home, the adults can learn from their children's education how to also be discerning and selective in their approach to the wild world of media manipulation.