Home Alone Safety › The course › Badge 4, Online Safety › What 2026 adds
What 2026 adds
Badge 4 of 7 · Online Safety
Lesson 2 of 4 · Step 23 of 43 in the course
Watch, then decide. The next step only opens when you have it right.
Step 1 of 4
Step 1 of 4
The group chat
- Most unkindness at your age happens in a group chat, not on a public profile — which means adults do not see it.
- Screenshot before you leave a chat. The evidence disappears when you go.
- You are allowed to leave.
- You do not owe anybody an explanation for leaving a conversation that has turned nasty.
Watch, then answer this
Why is a group chat harder for adults to help with?
Step 2 of 4
Disappearing messages do not disappear
- Anybody can screenshot.
- Platforms keep it whether or not you can see it.
- A message that vanishes off your screen is not a message that has gone.
Watch, then answer this
A message disappears after you read it. Who might still have it?
Step 3 of 4
Photos say where you are
- A photo can carry the location it was taken in.
- So can the background — your school uniform, your street sign, the number on your front door.
- Turn location off in your camera settings.
- Look at the background before you post, not after.
Watch, then answer this
You crop your face out of a photo before posting it. Is it anonymous now?
Watch what happens
Then go back and pick again.
Step 4 of 4
Games are messaging apps
- Voice chat, party chat and in-game messages are exactly the same as any other chat.
- This is where most children your age first talk to somebody they have never met.
- Every rule on this page applies inside the game.
- Anybody can say they are eleven and like the same things you do. The test was never their age — it is whether you have met them.
Watch, then answer this
Somebody in your game says they are eleven, same as you. What does that tell you?
That is this lesson.
You watched it, you made the call yourself, and you got it right. That is the whole lesson — nothing here was read to pass.
Now do it
Off the screen, before you leave this page
Watching is not the same as being able to do it. Stand up and work through these. Nothing here is marked and nothing is sent anywhere — the ticks are yours.
Accessibility
Read what happens in each clip instead
Step 1 — Where it happens now. A phone showing an abstract group conversation, blank grey message shapes with no readable words, filling up fast. A thumb screenshots, then leaves the chat. Clean mock UI, no real platform.
Step 2 — Nothing actually goes. A message on a phone screen fades away — and at the same moment a second phone, held by somebody else, captures it. Then a server rack, plainly drawn, sitting quietly. Simple and slightly wry.
Step 3 — The background talks. A cheerful selfie about to be posted. Then the same picture again with the background noticed properly: a school crest on a sweater, a street sign, a house number. Nothing sinister — just the things that were there all along.
Step 4 — Same rules inside the game. A child gaming with a headset on, an unseen voice chatting away friendly in the party. The child’s expression is relaxed, then thoughtful. Nothing bad happens; the point is only that this is a conversation with a stranger.
Every film on this page is narrated and carries a caption track, supplied as a sidecar and never burned into the picture.