This course will give you the knowledge you need to protect yourself from online misinformation. You’ll learn why people create and share false and misleading content, commonly used tactics for spreading it, how to outsmart it, and how to talk to family and friends about it.
For 14 days you will receive a daily SMS message, with extra video and article links if you want to dive deeper. It’s designed to appeal to everyone: journalists, students, your friends and family.
Here’s how you can access our free SMS course to prepare for #US2020 misinformation:
1. Make a free account ➡️ bit.ly/protection-fro… 2. Decide when you want your daily text to arrive 3. Check you get a text confirming you’re signed up 4. Enjoy!
We recommend you sign up using the SMS option — the other two are in development. If you prefer Whatsapp you’re going to have to reply NEXT every day to stay enrolled.
For a sneak preview of the course, check out this video on how emotional skepticism can help protect vulnerable communities.
We’re hoping to translate the course into multiple languages, but want to test it in English first.
There’s a feedback form at the end of the course but if you need technical support or have any ideas please DM our training manager @lauragrb or email training@firstdraftnews.com
If you’d like to learn more about misinformation, you can sign up for our FREE public guide designed to help you navigate the #coronavirus infodemic.
In this course you will learn why we share misinformation, how to verify it and how to talk about it.
2/12 Our Australia team continues its work at @UTSEngage, monitoring social media and conducting research on how to counter online mis- and dis-information. They will be an official partner of the @IFL_Brown
3/12 First Draft began in 2015 as a small nonprofit coalition that sprung out of a need: to understand, verify, and provide guidance on the misinformation we all were seeing on the social web. Over the following six years, we built out teams in London, New York, and Sydney.
A large amount of mis- and disinformation has circulated on social media in multiple languages over the past few days regarding #Ukraine. Trustworthy information is as important as ever in times of crisis, so here are our top tips and tools 👇
First and foremost, be wary of the difference between MISinformation and DISinformation. While they can seem interchangeable, the difference lies in the intent. Precise language is important e.g. propaganda can fall under the umbrella of disinformation
Second, visual misinformation gains a lot of attention. We’ve seen time and time again old photos and videos recirculated during times of crisis, which can cause more chaos and confusion. Preventing this can be as easy as running a reverse image search
1/ First Draft’s latest piece looks at anti-Muslim content spread on YouTube and TV news in India
2/ First Draft examined 70 headlines from stories about the Tablighi Jamaat run by some of India’s most-watched news channels, as well as a number of news outlets over the past year
3/ Of those headlines, we found that 27 used anti-Muslim language, while four made misleading, false or out-of-context claims
1/ How are climate change conspiracy theories and misinformation spreading cross-platforms and escalating over-time?
2/ First Draft’s @carlottadotto analyzed climate change-related conversations over the past year on the fringe platforms 4chan and 8kun. YouTube was the most popular domain used to support climate change denialism, followed by Bitchute, web archive links, and Wikipedia.
3/ The rampant use of YouTube links on 4chan and 8kun emphasizes how misinformation on the platform is being pushed to networks in other online spaces.
In the wake of recent vaccine announcements, reporters and policymakers need to be tracking “data deficits” — situations where demand for information about a topic is high, but the supply of credible information is low. We outline two of them below. 🧵👇firstdraftnews.org/long-form-arti…
1. mRNA technology, DNA alteration and foreign propaganda narratives. mRNA vaccines’ novelty and technical complexity complicates efforts to provide accessible and compelling information on this technology, while the incentive for bad actors to exploit this gap is high.
2. Measures of vaccine “effectiveness,” trial stages’ “interim” results and other limitations of the vaccine announcements. Information detailing these limitations are often missing from reporting, which could erode public confidence in Covid-19 vaccines.
Today the UK became the first Western country to approve a Covid-19 vaccine. Following this and other recent vaccine trial and approval announcements, here are five misinformation narratives reporters should be aware of when covering these stories. 🧵👇 firstdraftnews.org/latest/vaccine…
1. A Covid-19 vaccine is unnecessary; the immune system is superior. This narrative is now comparing Covid-19 survival rates to the efficacy rates of the current vaccines to suggest that our immune systems are more capable than vaccines in protecting us from Covid-19.
The narrative that hydroxychloroquine’s effectiveness eliminates the need for a Covid-19 vaccine, highly popular among many Francophone communities in Europe and Africa, has been applied to recent vaccine trial announcements.