Civic Tech Field Guide
Sharing knowledge and productively growing the fieldThe Tech > Media > Fight disinformation - (436)
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 436 Results
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.
Putting Civic Online Reason In Civics Class
Stanford, CA, USAThe COR curriculum was developed by the Stanford History Education Group as part of MediaWise—a partnership of SHEG, the Poynter Institute, and the Local Media Association.
South Asia Check
Kathmandu, NepalSouth Asia Check is an independent, non-partisan, non-profit initiative by Panos South Asia which aims to promote accuracy and accountability in public debate.
Siberkreasi
JakartaSiBerkreasi is a national movement to overcome the biggest potential threats that are being faced by Indonesia, namely the spread of negative content through the internet such as hoaxes, cyberbullying and online radicalism.
Snopes
United States of America (the)When misinformation obscures the truth and readers don’t know what to trust, Snopes.com’s fact checking and original, investigative reporting lights the way to evidence-based and contextualized analysis.
Sobrevivendo nas Redes (Surviving on the networks)
Brazil (Brasil)The "Surviving the Networks" project aims to strengthen civic culture in Brazil by offering information and strategies on how to better inform oneself in social networks.
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.
Rooted in Trust
Internews Network, 15th Street Northwest, Washington, DC, USARooted in Trust is a pandemic information response plan countering the unprecedented scale and speed of the spread of rumors and misinformation about COVID-19. Operating in ten countries.
Within the disinformation and memory studies direction, the Institute for Development of Freedom of Information (IDFI) team is developing tools in several ways.
RESIST Counter Disinformation Toolkit
United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (the)UK government toolkit to help support the dissemination of reliable, truthful information that underpins our democracy.
Real 411
South Africa (South Africa, Afrika-Borwa, Suid-Afrika)Real411 was created to give all citizens the power to report digital disinformation during the run up to the 2019 South African National and Provincial Elections.
Rappler values truth-telling, facts, and factual reporting.
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
PUSAD
IndonesiaPUSAD is a center for research on religion and democracy, they conduct research on hate speech and political disinformation.
Radar
Brazil (Brasil)Radar is a project which uses a combination of algorithms and manual research to find posts related to three themes over a wide variety of social media platforms in Brazil.
Raskrinkavanje
Bosnia and Herzegovina (Bosna i Hercegovina / Босна и Херцеговина)The Raskrinkavanje.ba platform was launched by the team of the "Why Not" organization, which has many years of experience in fact-checking, through work on checking the accuracy and consistency of statements of public officials, and monitoring the fulfillment of election promises on the Istinomjer platform.
Project Certeza
Mexico City, CDMX, MexicoFirst deployed on Election Day in 2018, Project Certeza’s purpose was to identify and deal with false information disseminated, particularly through social networks but also through any other media, that could produce uncertainty or distrust in the citizenry about the electoral authority’s responsibilities as the election is happening.
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.
PubliElectoral
Buenos AiresPubliElectoral 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.
Pressland is a first-of-its-kind data-intelligence platform that maps global media production in real time.
The Pro-Truth Pledge is a project of Intentional Insights, a volunteer-run educational nonpartisan 501(c)(3) nonprofit devoted to promoting science-based truth-seeking, rational thinking, and wise decision-making.
PolitiTruth is a non-profit game of distinguishing political fact from fiction.
Polygraph.info is a fact-checking website produced by Voice of America (VOA) and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.
Polétika República Dominicana
C. Josefa Perdomo 160 Santo Domingo, Dominican RepublicPolétika República Dominicana is a group of civil society organizations and movements that work in different areas, including: health, housing and habitat, taxation, citizen security, transparency, childhood and adolescence, gender, and municipality.
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.
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.
OwlFactor automatically calculates the quality of an article based on four factors
Paris Call for Trust and Security in Cyberspace
Paris, FranceThe Paris Call for Trust and Security in Cyberspace of 12 November 2018 is a call to come together to face the new threats endangering citizens and infrastructure.
Observatorio Venezolano de Fake News
Bolivarian Republic of VenezuelaThe Venezuelan Fake News Observatory aims to educate and empower citizens in the face of a reality that is submerged daily in the misinformation produced, among other reasons, by the almost immediate viralization of falsified information that circulates, mainly, on social networks.
Newschecker
India (Bhārat)At Newschecker, it is our aim to limit and crackdown the spread of fake news in society.
Open & Disclose
South Africa (South Africa, Afrika-Borwa, Suid-Afrika)Open & Disclose aims to provide a platform for media organisations, journalists, columnists, and commentators to make public their interests, with the aim of strengthening institutional credibility, accountability, transparency, and trustworthiness.
In the age of social media, many of us ambiently consume news by reading headlines and descriptions that appear in our news feeds.
"A grant from the Knight Foundation to PBS News Hour, the Newstracker project has tasked itself with "developing a tool that combines online news content with engagement data from social media and other sources to help journalists and others better understand the scale, scope and shape of the misinformation problem." - Counteringdisinformation.org
NewseumED.org offers free resources to cultivate the First Amendment and media literacy skills essential to civic life.
"Sponsored partly by Microsoft, Newsguard is a plugin for browsers such as Chrome, Mozilla, and Microsoft's Edge that validates news websites for users based on 9 journalistic integrity criteria." - Counteringdisinformation.org
Newscheck
India (Bhārat)Strengthening our resolve to support the fight against misinformation in India, Internews is delighted to announce that in partnership with DataLEADS and with the support of Google.org, we will be launching a new news literacy project in India aimed at empowering the general public by helping them learn how to critically assess the information they see online and navigate news.
Netvizz is a data collection and extraction application that allows researchers to export data in standard file formats from different sections of the Facebook social networking service.
Nepal Fact Check
NepalCenter for Media Research – Nepal (CMR Nepal) is an autonomous, research and policy-oriented, not-for-profit non-governmental policy think tank registered with Nepal Government and Social Welfare Council and is based in Kathmandu, the capital of Nepal.
News Integrity Initiative
CUNY Graduate CenterThe News Integrity Initative is a global consortium focused on helping people make informed judgments about the news they read and share online.
Mozilla Web Literacy Framework
Mountain View, CA, USAIn today’s digital world, knowing how to read, write, and participate online is a foundational skill next to reading, writing, and arithmetic.
"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
Helping the Public Navigate a Challenging Media Landscape
Namibia Fact Check
NamibiaNamibia Fact Check is an impartial initiative that aims to verify public statements and media reports.
NATO Stratcom Communications Centre of Excellence
Riga, LatviaNATO Strategic Communications Centre of Excellence
Nepal’s Election Commission published their electoral code of conduct in 2015, which established standards and regulations for various institutions, persons, bodies and authorities.
Name It. Change It releases research projects and studies demonstrating gender-based challenges women face from the media when they run for office.
A Field Guide to “Fake News” and Other Information Disorders explores the use of digital methods to study false viral news, political memes, trolling practices and their social life online.
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