Civic Tech Field Guide
Sharing knowledge and productively growing the fieldThe Tech > Media > Fight disinformation - (418)
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 418 Results
Brown Information Futures Lab
Brown UniversityOur lab is where technology, innovation, policy and community meet, one pilot at a time.
Global Disinformation Lab at UT Austin
Austin, TXThe Global DisInformation Lab (GDIL) was established in 2020 at the University of Texas at Austin to encourage collaborative interdisciplinary academic research on the global circulation of misinformation, and disinformation.
Information Futures Lab Fellows Program
Brown UniversityThe Information Futures Fellowship is a novel opportunity for practitioners in public health, healthcare, community organizations, media, policy, design and other fields who are actively working on responses to the ongoing information crisis.
Track the trolls & sock-puppets poisoning our democracies
A.N.C.I.R. Misinfo
AfricaA project investigating the stories and the data behind fake news in Africa
The African Digital Democracy Observatory (ADDO) is offering a series of seed grants and additional technical support for targeted research into how both state-affiliated and other lobbyist groups use influence/information operations and disinformation and targeted propaganda to subvert African democracies. The initial research grants focus on four countries: Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria and Senegal.
ADDO is a coalition of investigative analysis + forensic research organisations that monitor how digital tools and civic technologies impact on the rights of African citizens
An ongoing series of reports about ad-funded disinformation
Disinformation Pathways and Effects: Case Studies from Five African Countries
Cameroon (Cameroon, Cameroun)Interviews with 90 respondents
Watchdog
Batticaloa, Sri LankaWatchdog is a multidisciplinary team of factcheckers, journalists, researchers and software engineers. We hunt hoaxes and misinformation, investigate matters of public welfare, and build software tools that help operations like ours.
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.
Dutch Code of Conduct Transparency Online Political Advertisements
Netherlands (Nederland, Holland)This Code of Conduct was published to address the issues of election transparency and disinformation in the digital sphere.
Credibility Coalition
San FranciscoThe Credibility Coalition brings people together to develop common standards for information credibility.
The African Fact-Checking Alliance (AFCA) is a network of media and civil society organizations that work to counter misinformation. The network supports fact-checking missions to debunk dangerous content, including conspiracy theories and misinformation.
Digital Ethical Pact
PanamaPanama's Digital Ethical Pact is an agreement where signatories pledge to follow the following: 1. Collaborate with the Electoral Tribunal so that the electoral ban is respected and electoral campaign is only carried out during the permitted periods of 45 days before the internal elections of the political parties and 60 days before the general elections.
Manila Principles on Intermediary Liability
Manila, Metro Manila, PhilippinesThe Manilla Principles on Intermediary Liability define various principles for intermediary companies to follow when operating in democratic and authoritarian environments
Iffy Quotient
University of Michigan, South State Street, Ann Arbor, MI, USAThe Iffy Quotient is a metric for how much content from “Iffy” sites has been amplified on Facebook and Twitter.
Voluntary Code of Ethics - India 2019 Election
India (Bhārat)Prior to 2019 elections, the Election Commission of India was able to convene representatives from top social media companies for a two-day brainstorming session on approaches to problematic social media content in elections.
Digit Eye
India (Bhārat)Digiteye India is an independent digital news fact-checking venture by a small group of veteran journalists who came together to bring forth authentic facts behind daily news and claims being passed on as news, social media messages and views.
"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
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.
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.
TrolleyBust
Ukraine (Ukrayina)TrolleyBust is a service for tracking and blocking Internet trolls and other sources of anti-Ukrainian propaganda.
Poynter's global guide on existing attempts to legislate against what can broadly be referred to as online misinformation
The index compiles news sites with low factual-reporting levels, as determined and documented by Media Bias/Fact Check.
Media Bias/Fact Check (MBFC), founded in 2015, is an independent online media outlet.
Dubawa
NigeriaDUBAWA is Nigeria’s independent verification and fact-checking platform, initiated by the Premium Times Centre for Investigative Journalism (PTCIJ) and supported by the most influential newsrooms and civic organisations in the country to help amplify the culture of truth in public discourse, public policy, and media practice.
Fato ou Fake
Brazil (Brasil)Fato ou Fake is a news literacy project that vetted more than 700 pieces of information ahead of the elections.
Fakey
IndianaThis game aims to teach media literacy and study how people interact with misinformation.
Latam Chequea
Latin AmericaFaced with the “infodemic”, the spread of rumors and false content, Latin American checkers join forces to share the information we produce and, by joining forces, provide better information to our communities.
Namibia Fact Check
NamibiaNamibia Fact Check is an impartial initiative that aims to verify public statements and media reports.
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 Hypothesis Project is a new effort to implement an old idea: A conversation layer over the entire web that works everywhere, without needing implementation by any underlying site."
PBS youth media literacy effort. "This is a pilot – a test – with Ruff Ruffman videos looking at the red-hot topic of how kids can and should use media and technology."
BotSlayer is an application that helps track and detect potential manipulation of information spreading on Twitter.
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.
Protecting Tunisian Elections from Digital Threat Roundtable
Tunisia (Tunis)The roundtable highlights the current state of social media used by political actors ahead of the elections, seeking to understand and foresight how social media will impact the political campaign, and how to better protect the integrity of the campaign.
Reliability and Multilingual Global Communities
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.
The DeepTrust Alliance is a global coalition of stakeholders advancing the fight against digital disinformation and deepfakes.
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
The purpose of this handbook is to increase public communicators' awareness and understanding of information influence campaigns and develop their ability to respond.
PubliElectoral
Buenos Aires, ArgentinaPubliElectoral is a technological tool of social interest that allows the collection of information related to electoral advertising on social networks without affecting the privacy of citizen users.
Be Internet Awesome
Mountain View, CA, USAGoogle's digital media literacy training for kids
Permanent International Media Monitoring Mission on Disinformation about Ukraine and the Ukrainian diaspora
Ukraine (Ukrayina)NGO "Ukraine-2050" is a working to counter disinformation through a media monitoring program.
Helping the Public Navigate a Challenging Media Landscape
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