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How to put the internet in a box

Tom Colls

October 20, 2020 |

BBC |

Radio |

Over 15 Minutes

Response Location: Bangladesh

Offline communities are being connected to the world's information through a network of people who physically carry data on devices containing content from Wikipedia and Khan Academy. Residents in a Himalayan village not only consumed the information but also asked for an offline wifi network which allowed them to create and share their own media. In Rohingya refugee camps, tablets were handed out to quell rampant disinformation about the spread of coronavirus. The tablets were equipped with videos from trusted health sources to provide reliable information about staying safe and healthy.

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This game can stop people from falling for COVID-19 conspiracies

Ruth Reader

October 13, 2020 |

FastCompany |

Text |

800-1500 Words

Response Location: United Kingdom, Cambridge, England

To combat the spread of conspiracy theories, researchers at Cambridge’s Social Decision Making Lab have created an interactive game that puts users in the shoes of "manipulators" to teach them how to "question social media posts that have the hallmarks of engineered virality." Although experts say playing the game just one time will likely not result in sustainable change, a similar game that focused on understanding how fake news was created found that users' beliefs in fake news decreased by an average of 21%.

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This AI startup is tackling the coronavirus disinformation deluge

Sirin Kale

August 14, 2020 |

Wired |

Text |

800-1500 Words

Response Location: United Kingdom

Logically is a fact-checking app that combines AI technology and human research to assess and label the truthfulness of news articles. The app has about 20,000 users after a soft launch in the UK, with a full launch planned for late 2020. The AI technology, a feature that makes the app unique, tries to match news claims to other sources and then human researchers take over to make a final judgment. The app has been busy fact-checking the extensive Covid-19 related misinformation. Some aspects, like technology glitches and slow fact-checking responses from researchers, still need to be worked out.

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How Your Local Election Clerk Is Fighting Global Disinformation

Matt Vasilogambros

July 20, 2020 |

Stateline |

Text |

1500-3000 Words

Response Location: United States

Many entities are working with social media companies to flag election-related disinformation. The California Secretary of State emails voters about how to report false information so the state can flag it and the Arizona Secretary of State verifies official accounts with social media companies. In the private sector, the startup VineSite uses artificial intelligence to identify and flag false information and the nonprofit Mitre has an app used by 160 election officials to report social media disinformation. Officials have a good relationship with social media companies, but there is room for improvement.

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A Job for Elves

Gil Skorwid

June 09, 2020 |

Are We Europe |

Text |

1500-3000 Words

Response Location: Lithuania

The coronavirus pandemic has invigorated organizations working in the Baltics to counter disinformation, particularly from Russia, by flagging suspicious accounts, fake news, and hate speech. For example, Covid-19 led hundreds of Lithuanian medics to a group called the Elves to flag disinformation about the virus and related government responses. The groups partner with and receive funding from local and international sources, including Facebook and the Google News Innovation Fund. Some question whether highlighting stories, websites, and user accounts as fake might actually help to disseminate them further.

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Students on lockdown create a global guide to coronavirus conspiracy theories, fake cures, and other whopping lies

Matt Field

May 26, 2020 |

Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists |

Text |

800-1500 Words

Response Location: United States, Princeton, New Jersey

Princeton University's Empirical Studies of Conflict Project launched a tracking effort to document COVID-19 disinformation worldwide. Created by a network of students tapping into fact-checking sites and other social media and internet sources, the data set taking shape (and, with more than 800 entries in its first three months, already accessible online) serves as a resource for researchers, historians, journalists, and the public in the battle against rumors, conspiracy theories, fake cures, propaganda, and other disinformation surrounding the pandemic.

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To combat COVID-19 information gaps, Latino leaders and Spanish media ‘work double'

Lauren Lindstrom

April 04, 2020 |

The Charlotte Observer |

Text |

800-1500 Words

Response Location: United States, Mecklenburg County, North Carolina

In North Carolina's Mecklenburg County, Spanish is more commonly spoken than English, yet information about the ongoing coronavirus pandemic wasn't being translated from English before being distributed. To address this "information gap," community leaders and media organizations stepped in and launched a hotline and public safety campaigns to help residents access information in a more timely fashion.

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With An Election On The Horizon, Older Adults Get Help Spotting Fake News

Sam Gringlas

March 27, 2020 |

NPR |

Text |

800-1500 Words

Response Location: United States, Maryland

Senior centers in Maryland are offering media literacy courses to discuss fact-checking and how to spot fake news stories online. A recent study by researchers at Princeton and NYU found that Facebook users over 65 are seven times more likely to post articles from fake news websites as are adults under 29, so digital literacy classes provide tools to help identify fake news sites. Many participants report feeling empowered by the class because they did not grow up online. Despite the interest, these courses are more difficult to integrate widely in senior centers than they would be in a school setting.

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'Visible women': Feminist mappers bridge data gap in urban design

Anastasia Moloney

March 07, 2020 |

Thomson Reuters Foundation |

Text |

800-1500 Words

Response Location: Mexico, Mexico City

The underrepresentation of women in technology and computer science has led to the creation of Geochicas, a group of women who recruit and train female, open source mappers across the world. Open source mapping is a male-dominated pursuit but one that informs urban design and public policy. When mapping a city, women tend to add services that are overlooked by men, such as childcare services, hospitals, and women's health clinics. Diversifying the volunteers who do this work to include more women leads to mapping that is more inclusive and minimizes crowdsourced-data bias against women.

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‘I have a duty to do this': Meet the Redditors fighting 2020's fake news war

Steven Melendez

March 02, 2020 |

FastCompany |

Text |

1500-3000 Words

Response Location: United States

The freewheeling discussion platform Reddit has spawned many conspiracy theories, but it also plays host to anti-disinformation activists. By striking back at those who spread propaganda and potentially harmful disinformation, forums such as r/Disinfo, rDisinformationWatch, and r/trollfare share news and research debunking conspiracy theories and unmasking disinformation campaigns. The audience for false information remains much larger, and the truth squad has not slain the propaganda dragon singlehandedly. But the anonymous, volunteer moderators see value in educating people searching for trustworthy news.

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