What was your first reaction when you saw them — amusement, annoyance, or nothing at all? If you have not seen them, what do you think you would feel?

Sentence Patterns (use at any level)

1. I came across them ___ — used to say where and when you met them

2. My first reaction was ___, before I had worked out why — used to give the reaction and admit it came first

3. What gave it away was ___ — used to name the detail that told you what it was

4. It was ___ for about ___, and then ___ — used to describe a reaction that did not last

5. I would not generalise from ___ — used to limit your claim to what you actually saw

🌱 BEGINNER (High School Level) 🌱

Vocabulary & Phrases:

1. come across — to find something without looking for it

2. look the same — to be so similar that you cannot tell which is which

3. at first — at the beginning, before you had time to think

4. get used to — to stop noticing something after a while

5. a wave of — a large number of things arriving at the same time

🌿 INTERMEDIATE (CET-4 Level) 🌿

Vocabulary & Phrases:

1. scroll past — to move past something on a screen without stopping

2. identical — exactly the same in every detail

3. a giveaway — a detail that shows what is really going on

4. wear thin — to stop being funny or interesting after a while

5. at first glance — when you look quickly, before studying it

🌳 ADVANCED (CET-6 Level) 🌳

Vocabulary & Phrases:

1. on closer inspection — after looking at it more carefully than at first

2. indistinguishable — impossible to tell apart even on a close look

3. cut from the same cloth — so similar that they seem made by the same hand

4. a tell — a small sign that shows what something really is, often without meaning to

5. novelty — the quality of being new and therefore interesting — and it does not last

Has your reaction changed since you learned what they actually are — a plugin, a mascot, a flood? Which part of the story moved you, and which part didn't?

Sentence Patterns (use at any level)

1. At first I assumed ___, and then I read that ___ — used to set your first assumption against what you later learned

2. What changed my mind was ___ — used to name the detail that did the work

3. I came round to ___ once I understood ___ — used to describe a view that shifted slowly

4. The part that left me cold was ___ — used to say which detail did not persuade you

5. Knowing ___ does not change how I feel about ___ — used to separate understanding from judgment

🌱 BEGINNER (High School Level) 🌱

Vocabulary & Phrases:

1. find out — to learn something you did not know

2. change your mind — to decide something different from before

3. make no difference — to have no effect on what you think

4. read about — to find information about something in an article

5. it turned out — what was really true, in the end

🌿 INTERMEDIATE (CET-4 Level) 🌿

Vocabulary & Phrases:

1. see it differently — to have another view after learning more

2. come round to — to accept an idea you first resisted

3. be won over — to be persuaded by someone or something

4. what did it for me — the detail that changed your view

5. beside the point — not relevant to the question being asked

🌳 ADVANCED (CET-6 Level) 🌳

Vocabulary & Phrases:

1. revise my view — to change an opinion in the light of new evidence

2. the turning point — the moment when your view changed

3. cut no ice — to have no effect on someone's judgment

4. beguiling — charming in a way that stops you asking harder questions

5. spin — the version of events that someone wants you to believe

If the videos are small and the comments are harmless, is the annoyance proportionate? Where would the harm have to show up before you called this serious?

Sentence Patterns (use at any level)

1. If ___ is all that happens, then ___ — used to accept the premise before judging it

2. The harm is not in ___ but in ___ — used to move the harm somewhere else

3. I would call it serious once ___ — used to name the point at which you would stop shrugging

4. It is easy to say ___ when ___ — used to point at who is speaking

5. Compared with ___, this is ___ — used to scale one complaint against another

🌱 BEGINNER (High School Level) 🌱

Vocabulary & Phrases:

1. make a fuss — to complain loudly about something you think is not important

2. no big deal — not important

3. harm — damage or injury done to someone

4. serious — important and worth worrying about

5. get worked up — to become upset about something

🌿 INTERMEDIATE (CET-4 Level) 🌿

Vocabulary & Phrases:

1. blow out of proportion — to make something seem bigger than it is

2. overreact — to react more strongly than the situation deserves

3. trivial — of very little importance

4. in the grand scheme of things — when you consider everything that matters

5. at the very least — the smallest thing that would count

🌳 ADVANCED (CET-6 Level) 🌳

Vocabulary & Phrases:

1. disproportionate — much larger than the cause justifies

2. diffuse — spread out, so that no single place carries it

3. cumulative — adding up over many small instances

4. draw the line — to set the point beyond which you will not go

5. a rounding error — an amount so small that it does not affect the total

Some call this vandalism; others call it performance art. Which word fits better — and what would have to change before you switched to the other one?

Sentence Patterns (use at any level)

1. I would call it ___ rather than ___, because ___ — used to choose between two words and justify the choice

2. The word ___ promises ___, which is not what happened here — used to unpack what a label commits you to

3. I would switch to ___ if ___ — used to name the condition that would change your word

4. Neither word fits: ___ — used to reject both options

5. Calling it ___ lets everyone off the hook — used to say what a word hides

🌱 BEGINNER (High School Level) 🌱

Vocabulary & Phrases:

1. ruin — to spoil something so that it cannot be used properly

2. for fun — not for a serious reason

3. damage — harm done to something

4. a joke — something done to make people laugh

5. without asking — used when someone does something they had no permission for

🌿 INTERMEDIATE (CET-4 Level) 🌿

Vocabulary & Phrases:

1. deliberate — done on purpose, not by accident

2. a prank — a trick played on someone for fun

3. mischief — behaviour that annoys people without doing serious harm

4. sabotage — deliberate damage meant to stop something working

5. in bad taste — offensive or unsuitable for the situation

🌳 ADVANCED (CET-6 Level) 🌳

Vocabulary & Phrases:

1. a stunt — something done mainly to attract attention

2. bad faith — behaviour that hides a dishonest purpose

3. trespass — to go onto or use something you have no right to

4. gratuitous — done without any good reason

5. cross a line — to go further than is acceptable

From what the reports describe, these bots sell nothing: they summarize, compliment, and beg for rice in character. Is fake enthusiasm harder to be angry at than fake advertising?

Sentence Patterns (use at any level)

1. At least advertising ___; this does not even ___ — used to compare two kinds of fake

2. What makes it hard to be angry is ___ — used to name why the anger does not arrive

3. It is flattering, and that is the problem: ___ — used to turn a pleasant thing into a criticism

4. The harm is not in the praise but in ___ — used to move the damage somewhere else

5. I would rather be sold to than ___ — used to choose between two bad options

🌱 BEGINNER (High School Level) 🌱

Vocabulary & Phrases:

1. praise — to say good things about someone

2. harmless — not able to hurt anyone

3. want something from someone — to have a reason for being nice that you do not say

4. get away with — to do something wrong without being punished

5. be nice to — to behave kindly towards someone

🌿 INTERMEDIATE (CET-4 Level) 🌿

Vocabulary & Phrases:

1. flattery — praise given in order to get something from you

2. a sales pitch — the words used to persuade you to buy

3. insincere — saying things you do not really mean

4. an ulterior motive — a hidden reason for doing something

5. strike someone as — to give someone a particular impression

🌳 ADVANCED (CET-6 Level) 🌳

Vocabulary & Phrases:

1. disarming — making you drop your guard

2. ingratiating — trying hard to please in order to gain an advantage

3. butter someone up — to praise someone so that they will do what you want

4. mask — to hide something behind a pleasant surface

5. manufactured — produced artificially rather than arising on its own

If you could not tell a machine's comment from a person's, would it matter? Does it matter because the comment is fake, or because you might be fooled by one?

Sentence Patterns (use at any level)

1. If I cannot tell the difference, then ___ — used to follow an assumption to its end

2. What bothers me is not that it is fake but that ___ — used to separate two kinds of discomfort

3. I would rather know, even if ___ — used to state a preference and accept what it costs

4. It matters because ___ would otherwise be doing the work of ___ — used to say what a fake replaces

5. Being fooled once would make me ___ — used to describe the effect on how you read afterwards

🌱 BEGINNER (High School Level) 🌱

Vocabulary & Phrases:

1. tell the difference — to see how two things are not the same

2. genuine — actually what it claims to be

3. believe — to think that something is true

4. care — to think that something is important

5. a lie — something said that is not true

🌿 INTERMEDIATE (CET-4 Level) 🌿

Vocabulary & Phrases:

1. spot — to notice something, especially something hidden

2. deception — the act of making someone believe something untrue

3. fall for — to be tricked by something

4. suspicion — a feeling that something is not right

5. take at face value — to believe something without checking it

🌳 ADVANCED (CET-6 Level) 🌳

Vocabulary & Phrases:

1. discern — to recognise something that is not obvious

2. duplicity — dishonest behaviour that hides your real intentions

3. go along with — to accept something without objecting

4. suspend disbelief — to stop asking whether something is real

5. uncanny — strange in a way that is hard to explain

Who should have stepped in — the developer, the people who deployed it, the platform, or nobody, because a comment section is not a public square? What would you have wanted done?

Sentence Patterns (use at any level)

1. The responsibility sits with ___ because ___ — used to place the duty and give the reason

2. ___ could have ___ at almost no cost — used to show how cheap the fix would have been

3. Nobody should have stepped in: ___ — used to defend the leave-it-alone position

4. What I would have wanted is ___, not ___ — used to separate the remedy you want from the one on offer

5. Blaming ___ is convenient because ___ — used to question where the blame lands

🌱 BEGINNER (High School Level) 🌱

Vocabulary & Phrases:

1. allow — to let something happen

2. stop — to end something that is going on

3. a rule — something that says what you must or must not do

4. responsibility — the duty to deal with something

5. in charge — having control over something

🌿 INTERMEDIATE (CET-4 Level) 🌿

Vocabulary & Phrases:

1. accountability — the state of having to answer for what you do

2. moderate — to check and control what people post

3. a safeguard — something that prevents harm

4. turn a blind eye — to pretend not to see something wrong

5. enforce — to make people obey a rule

🌳 ADVANCED (CET-6 Level) 🌳

Vocabulary & Phrases:

1. a duty of care — an obligation to avoid causing harm

2. abdicate — to give up a responsibility you should keep

3. complicity — involvement in wrongdoing by not stopping it

4. sanction — to approve or allow something officially

5. a bottleneck — a narrow point that slows everything down

Should platforms label AI comments, or leave it to readers to spot them? Would a label change how you read the comment, or only how you feel about who left it?

Sentence Patterns (use at any level)

1. A label would change ___ but not ___ — used to separate what a label can and cannot do

2. If the platform labels it, then ___ — used to follow the consequence of the platform acting

3. Leaving it to readers means ___ — used to spell out what the alternative asks of people

4. I would trust a label only if ___ — used to name the condition for trusting it

5. The label tells you what it is; it does not tell you ___ — used to mark the limit of information

🌱 BEGINNER (High School Level) 🌱

Vocabulary & Phrases:

1. a tag — a small mark or note attached to something

2. notice — to see or become aware of something

3. trust — to believe that someone is honest

4. hide — to keep something from being seen

5. a warning — something that tells you to be careful

🌿 INTERMEDIATE (CET-4 Level) 🌿

Vocabulary & Phrases:

1. flag — to mark something so that others notice it

2. transparency — being open about what is happening

3. disclosure — the act of making something known

4. verify — to check that something is true

5. a disclaimer — a statement that limits someone's responsibility

🌳 ADVANCED (CET-6 Level) 🌳

Vocabulary & Phrases:

1. provenance — the record of where something came from

2. attest — to state formally that something is true

3. a watermark — a hidden mark that shows where something came from

4. offload — to pass a burden to someone else

5. performative — done to be seen doing it rather than to achieve anything

The people who built the cleaner used the same model and the same mascot as the flood. Does that make the whole thing more ridiculous, or more worrying?

Sentence Patterns (use at any level)

1. It is funny until you notice ___ — used to turn a joke into a worry

2. The same tool on both sides means ___ — used to draw out what the symmetry implies

3. If the only defence is made of the same material, then ___ — used to follow the logic to its end

4. I find it ___ rather than ___, because ___ — used to choose between the two words offered

5. What worries me is not the mascot but ___ — used to move the worry to where it belongs

🌱 BEGINNER (High School Level) 🌱

Vocabulary & Phrases:

1. fix — to repair something or make it work again

2. strange — unusual in a way that is hard to explain

3. make fun of — to laugh at something in a mocking way

4. a copy — something made to look exactly like another

5. side by side — next to each other, so that they can be compared

🌿 INTERMEDIATE (CET-4 Level) 🌿

Vocabulary & Phrases:

1. irony — a situation where the opposite of what you expect happens

2. patrol — to move around an area watching for trouble

3. mirror — to be very similar to something else

4. self-regulating — able to control itself without outside help

5. cancel out — to remove the effect of something

🌳 ADVANCED (CET-6 Level) 🌳

Vocabulary & Phrases:

1. symmetry — a balance between two sides that is either pleasing or troubling

2. co-opt — to take over something and use it for your own purpose

3. regulatory capture — when a regulator ends up serving what it regulates

4. recursion — a process that applies itself to its own output

5. beg the question — to assume the thing you are trying to prove

Would you run one yourself — an agent that watches videos and leaves comments in your name? Would you tell people, or let them assume it was you?

Sentence Patterns (use at any level)

1. I would use one for ___ but not for ___ — used to draw your own line

2. If I did, I would say so, because ___ — used to state a rule you would hold yourself to

3. Letting people assume it was me is ___ — used to name what the silence amounts to

4. The work is the same; what changes is ___ — used to separate the act from the credit

5. I would not want to read a comment knowing ___ — used to judge from the other side

🌱 BEGINNER (High School Level) 🌱

Vocabulary & Phrases:

1. in my name — as if it were me doing it

2. save time — to make something take less time

3. keep it to myself — to not tell anyone

4. admit — to say that something is true, especially something you would rather hide

5. a habit — something you do regularly without thinking about it

🌿 INTERMEDIATE (CET-4 Level) 🌿

Vocabulary & Phrases:

1. delegate — to give a task to someone else to do

2. take credit — to accept praise for something you did not do

3. plausible deniability — the ability to deny knowing about something

4. a stand-in — someone who takes another person's place

5. come clean — to tell the truth about something you hid

🌳 ADVANCED (CET-6 Level) 🌳

Vocabulary & Phrases:

1. outsource — to have work done by someone outside

2. authorship — the fact of having written something

3. tacit — understood without being said

4. front — to appear as the public face of something run by others

5. an alibi — a claim that you were elsewhere, used to avoid blame

If your post got more comments than usual and you learned most were machines, would you feel cheated, flattered, or nothing at all — and would you delete them?

Sentence Patterns (use at any level)

1. I would feel ___ first and ___ second — used to describe a reaction with two layers

2. The number went up and ___ went down — used to set a number against what it measures

3. Deleting them would be ___; leaving them would be ___ — used to weigh two uncomfortable options

4. It is flattering, and that is what makes it ___ — used to turn a pleasant feeling into a problem

5. If the comments are not from people, then the count is not ___ — used to question what a number stands for

🌱 BEGINNER (High School Level) 🌱

Vocabulary & Phrases:

1. delete — to remove something completely

2. keep — to continue to have something

3. real — actually done by a person

4. count for something — to have value or importance

5. a fan — someone who likes your work and follows what you make

🌿 INTERMEDIATE (CET-4 Level) 🌿

Vocabulary & Phrases:

1. flattered — pleased by attention

2. inflate — to make a number look bigger than it is

3. leave up — to keep a post visible

4. a pat on the back — praise for something you did

5. ring false — to sound untrue even if you cannot say why

🌳 ADVANCED (CET-6 Level) 🌳

Vocabulary & Phrases:

1. validation — proof that what you did had value

2. sting — to hurt or annoy you, often only a little

3. discount — to treat something as worth less than it appears

4. a vanity metric — a number that looks good but measures nothing useful

5. dress up — to make something seem better than it is

Fifty robot comments or an empty section — which would you choose if you were a small creator nobody watches? And be honest: is that what you want, or what you think you should want?

Sentence Patterns (use at any level)

1. If I am honest, I would take ___, and then feel ___ about it — used to answer honestly and name the cost

2. An empty section means ___, which is worse than ___ — used to say what silence actually costs

3. What I want is ___, but what I think I should want is ___ — used to separate the two answers

4. Choosing the robots would be a way of ___ — used to name what the choice really is

5. Fifty comments are not fifty readers, and that is ___ — used to separate the number from what it promises

🌱 BEGINNER (High School Level) 🌱

Vocabulary & Phrases:

1. silence — the state of having no comments at all

2. lonely — unhappy because you are alone

3. worth — having value or importance

4. pretend — to act as if something is true when it is not

5. deep down — in the part of you that you do not usually show

🌿 INTERMEDIATE (CET-4 Level) 🌿

Vocabulary & Phrases:

1. discouraging — making you want to give up

2. a feedback loop — a process where the result feeds back into the cause

3. prefer — to like one thing more than another

4. kid yourself — to persuade yourself of something untrue

5. encouragement — words that give you confidence to continue

🌳 ADVANCED (CET-6 Level) 🌳

Vocabulary & Phrases:

1. rationalise — to invent a good reason for something you want anyway

2. disingenuous — pretending not to know something you do know

3. flatter yourself — to give yourself a pleasing but false picture

4. semblance — the appearance of something without the reality

5. a fig leaf — something used to hide an embarrassing fact