In today's digital age, media literacy and critical thinking are essential for informed decision-making, safeguarding against disinformation, and addressing online harms like hate speech. These skills are crucial for effective cognitive processing and decision-making, as they support critical thinking when consuming information, promote responsible media production and consumption, facilitate the ability to make informed decisions and protect oneself from disinformation and misinformation. Moreover, media and digital literacy can help raise awareness about hate speech and influence operations that aim to sow distrust in media, democratic systems and lead to polarisation. Increased body of work suggests that online hate stands in a correlation with depression and suicide attempts among youth.

This paper delves into media literacy's facets, its role in mitigating social threats, and its progression, referencing international guidelines. A case study from Wroclaw, Poland's "Socially Responsible Digitization" pilot project, conducted between November 2022 and January 2023, illustrates practical applications with students and teachers. Finally, the paper concludes with a set of recommendations to improve the future iterations of the project, integrating participatory methodology and study of perception of disinformation and hate speech among youth.