In the battle to combat misinformation, researchers have offered clear advice for how journalists should cover and debunk it, but we have very provided little guidance for how civil society should counter media manipulation and disinformation campaigns. The lack of attention to civil society responses is a major gap in the research and it’s becoming increasingly clear that the guidance for journalists does not translate easily to civil society. At this time, we need all hands on deck to ensure a free and fair election. In this document, Dr. Joan Donovan explores a set of potential strategies to be used specifically by civil society organisations (CSOs) to mitigate the harms of misinformation.
Rumours are unverified information that spread rapidly through a group or population. They can either be true or false. Often there is a bit of both in a rumour. Rumours are a natural response to uncertain or threatening times. This short technical brief has important steps and resources on how country programmes can track and address rumours around COVID-19 (as needed). The guide includes a number of great resources and links while also sharing nuggets from global, collective thinking around rumours.
This document provides a vision for a pan-civil societal response to online manipulation: developing the capability to detect it; the coalitions to confront it; the strategies to prevent it, and the structures of cooperation and funding needed.
In 2019 Africa Check started “What’s Crap” on WhatsApp. They use the voice note feature, record and edit short audio notes, and distribute them via their broadcast lists. This has been a fun and accessible way for people to engage with their resources. They published a handbook on how everyone can do this.
InterAction developed a Disinformation Toolkit that offers a baseline of definitions and different practices to guide organisations on how to address disinformation attacks based on 5 WHs: Who, what, when, where and why. The toolkit further lays out advantages and disadvantages of countering an online attack.
Analysis of rumours should include what caused the rumour and what can be learned from it, assessing the rumour as actionable information and defining a way forward. A rumour-tracking methodology published by Internews is a good starting point of assessing rumours and their impacts.
The disinformation starter kit published by ISD lays out an approach that organisations can undertake to begin to track online disinformation on subjects that they care about.
This is a curriculum for educators in formal and informal education environments. It provides step-by-step guidance and interactive exercises for helping learners of all ages recognise why and how manipulative content works and gain skills to reject half-truths, clickbait, hate speech, and fakes.
This project focuses around the emerging and potential malicious uses of so-called “deepfakes” and other forms of AI-generated “synthetic media” and how we push back to defend evidence, the truth and freedom of expression from a global, human rights-led perspective.
