Civic Tech Field Guide
Sharing knowledge and productively growing the fieldThe Tech > Media > Fight disinformation - (408)
Disinformation campaigns by states, economic opportunists, and the misinformed themselves threaten to erode the common understandings, shared identities, and empirical bedrock that underlies our collective decisionmaking. While disinformation campaigns have used mass media to spread for many years, social media platforms have proven an exceptionally hospitable environment for the proliferation of falsehoods. Those looking to limit disinformation’s effect on society and bolster truth in media have likewise turned to technology to help keep up with the volume and precision of constantly evolving disinformation campaigns.
Suggested reading:
- Matt Stempeck's research into how the Code for All network has advanced its strategies for fighting disinformation in different contexts around the world (2022)
- Digital Disinformation and Vote Suppression, The Brennan Center for Justice (2020)
- Virus Experts Aren’t Getting the Message Out Renée DiResta in The Atlantic (2020)
- Safeguarding Democracy Against Disinformation Report by the German Marshall Fund of the United States (2020)
- Browser Plug-ins That Spot Fake News Show The Difficulty Of Tackling The ‘Information Apocalypse’ Can software that spots Photoshopped images help stem the tide of misinformation? The Verge (2018)
- Can an AI Fact-Checker Solve India’s Fake News Problem? An Indian startup is using an AI tool to curb misinformation. But India poses unique challenges for the technology. Undark (2019)
- Factchecking, a Quartz Daily Obsession media collage (2019)
- Fake news and fact-checking: 7 studies you should know about, a roundup from Journalist’s Resource (2020)
- The children’s storyteller helping Taiwan sort fact from fiction, a helpful deep dive into disinfo-fighting tech (and misappropriation through national ‘fake news laws’) in Asia. Al Jazeera (2020).
- CivicSpace.tech guide to Disinformation, including its relevance to civic space, opportunities, risks, and case studies (2020)
Showing 408 Results
CongoCheck
Congo (the Democratic Republic of the)Congo Check est un média spécialisé dans la vérification des faits ou factchecking. Congo Check est un projet de l'ASBL/ONG Initiative des fact-chechekers du Congo, IFC.
Communalytic is a computational social science research tool for studying online communities and discourse.
EDx course on media literacy. It helps us understand, analyze and create media.
Doble Check
University of Costa RicaDoble Check is a public discourse auditing project financed by the University of Costa Rica and which operates as a project affiliated with Radio Stations UCR.
VoxCheck
Ukraine (Ukrayina)Provides fact checking, explainers, and analytical articles, especially on issues of economic reform in Ukraine.
Digital Democracy Room
Rio de JaneiroThe Digital Democracy Room is an initiative of FGV DAPP to monitor the public debate on the internet and fight disinformation strategies which threaten the integrity of political and electoral processes, seeking to strengthen the democratic institutions.
Desconfío
ArgentinaDesconfío is an initiative launched by the Data Concepción team. It builds tools, produces research, and leads trainings.
Troll Factory
Finland (Suomi)Troll Factory was developed by a team of experts at Yle, the Finnish Broadcasting Company.
Faced with the choice between privacy and safety on the Internet, between freely expressing themselves and the ethical use of information, the media and technology – women, men and young boys and girls need new types of competencies.
Tirto.id
IndonesiaTirto.id translates the enlightening vision as the necessity of presenting clear, enlightening, insightful, contextual, deep, investigative, factual, supported by a lot of quantitative and qualitative data. - both secondary and primary, and can be accounted for.
The monitoring of mainstream media (TV, radio, newspapers) has become the general norm in Africa. However, social media trends are harder to track and must be taken into account too. Penplusbytes therefore developed what it calls the Social Media Tracking Centre (SMTC).
Name It. Change It releases research projects and studies demonstrating gender-based challenges women face from the media when they run for office.
Facebook Digital Literacy Library
United States of America (the)The Facebook Digital Literacy Library is hosted by Facebook and currently includes learning resources made available by Youth and Media at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International license.
The Global Internet Forum to Counter Terrorism (GIFCT) brings together the technology industry, government, civil society, and academia to foster collaboration and information-sharing to counter terrorist and violent extremist activity online.
The Hamilton 2.0 dashboard, a project of the Alliance for Securing Democracy at the German Marshall Fund of the United States, provides a summary analysis of the narratives and topics promoted by Russian, Chinese, and Iranian government officials and state-funded media on Twitter, YouTube, state-sponsored news websites, and via official diplomatic statements at the United Nations.
Chequea Bolivia
Bolivia (Buliwya / Wuliwya / Volívia)A fundamental pillar of the democratic system is that there is freedom of expression and dissemination, and that citizens are duly informed to make correct decisions in their daily lives.
Helping the Public Navigate a Challenging Media Landscape
teyit.org
Turkey (Turkiye)teyit.org is working to ensure that internet users can access correct information by verifying in many areas from widely known mistakes, suspicious information on the agenda of social media, claims brought up by the media, or urban legends.
The Markup, a nonprofit newsroom that investigates how the world’s most powerful institutions use technology to reshape society, today announced the development of The Citizen Browser Project—an initiative designed to measure how disinformation travels across social media platforms over time.
Checkology’s lessons and other resources show you how to navigate today’s challenging information landscape.
A report analyzing online spaces being weaponized to exclude women leaders and undermine the role of women in public life. It investigates gendered disinformation on Poland and the Philippines through Twitter data analyses.
The overall goal of the project is to safeguard the information integrity around the 2020 Parliamentary and 2021 Municipal elections in Georgia from disinformation, discrediting campaigns and other hostile information operations on social media.
Social Science One
Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USASocial Science One implements a new type of partnership between academic researchers and the private sector to advance the goals of social science in understanding and solving society’s greatest challenges.
The ANCIR iLab uses forensic data science techniques to expose the networks that disseminate and amplify misinformation, disinformation, and toxic content (such as hate speech or extremism) with a special focus on coordinated inauthentic behaviour and other influence/information operations.
AFP Fact Check is a global digital verification service that tackles damaging misinformation on topics such as COVID-19 and elections.
"The News Literacy Project is a national education nonprofit offering nonpartisan, independent programs that teach students how to know what to believe in the digital age." - Counteringdisinformation.org
Botometer (formerly BotOrNot) checks the activity of a Twitter account and gives it a score based on how likely the account is to be a bot.
Fact Crescendo
Crescendo Transcription Pvt Ltd, STPI, # 23, 24, 25 & 26, 2nd Floor, Naregaon Main Rd, MIDC Industrial Area, Chilkalthana, Aurangabad, Maharashtra 431201 IndiaFact Crescendo is an independent, unbiased fact-checking website that is committed to bringing the fact behind every news, debunking mis-interpreted & hoax news on a daily basis on false, mis-informed, social media as well as mainstream media.
Provides a framework for NDI's DemTech team to lead and support institutional initiatives countering disinformation and other forms of online manipulation, while strengthening and ensuring the integrity of the information space.
Information Resistance
Ukraine (Ukrayina)Information Resistance is a non-governmental project whose main task is to counteract in the information field external threats arising for Ukraine in the main areas: military, economic and energy, as well as in information security.
Social Media Hoax Slayer
Mumbai, Maharashtra, IndiaIn the last few years, the Social Media having a wider reach and faster, started polluting human minds by anti-social elements, wrong doers, pranksters etc.
Argentina's Ethical Digital Commitment
Buenos Aires"Pledge signed by political parties and technology/social network companies committing to avoiding fake news and mechanisms of disinformation that may affect upcoming elections." - Countering Disinfo
A report analyzing how gendered, online harassment of female journalists translates in the physical world.
Efecto Cocuyo Chequea
Bolivarian Republic of VenezuelaWe are an independent Venezuelan media, which uses all its platforms for the free exercise of journalism and access to information.
BOOM
MumbaiBOOM is an independent digital journalism initiative. We are India’s premier fact checking website, committed to bring to our readers verified facts rather than opinion. When there is a claim, we will fact check it.
Assessment of Online Risks for the 2021 German Federal Elections
Germany (Deutschland)A report analyzing the online environment and potential risks for the 2021 German Federal Elections.
Project Look Sharp Media Curriculum
Ithaca, New YorkProject Look Sharp is a nonprofit, mission-driven outreach program of Ithaca College.
Projeto Credibilidade
Brazil (Brasil)The Trust Project develops transparency standards that help people assess the quality and credibility of journalism.
Fact Check Initiative Japan
Japan (Nihon or Nippon)FIJ is a non-profit organization for the promotion of Japanese fact-checking aimed at protecting society from mis/disinformation.
Google's digital media literacy training for kids
PolitiTruth is a non-profit game of distinguishing political fact from fiction.
Pegabot
ITS Rio - Rua da Assembléia - Centro, Rio de Janeiro - State of Rio de Janeiro, Brazila tool that brings more transparency to the use of bots in Brazil.
Data Analytics for Social Media Monitoring
Washington, DCThis new guide is designed to help democracy practitioners better understand social media trends, content, data, and networks.
FactsMatterNg
NigeriaThe ICFJ Knight Fellowship programme in Nigeria is working with influencers and media partners to combat misinformation and fake news in the Nigerian digital media space.
BotSlayer is an application that helps track and detect potential manipulation of information spreading on Twitter.
EU Disinfo Lab
EuropeEU DisinfoLab is an independent non-profit organisation focused on tackling sophisticated disinformation campaigns targeting the EU, its member states, core institutions, and core values.
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