There are a huge number of resources online when it comes to fake news and disinformation. Here are 10 go-to sites that can help make sense of our information disruption without getting to deep into the weeds..
First Draft News is a non-profit that promotes media literacy, publishes research on disinformation, offers online training on verification techniques, and has organised several fact-checking projects around national elections.
First Draft’s groundbreaking CrossCheck project that brought almost 40 media and other stakeholders together in a partnership to debunk fake news in the 2017 French presidential election. The model has been used in several other countries since.
https://firstdraftnews.org/about/crosscheck-newsroom//
BuzzFeed media editor Craig Silverman was a pioneer in the field of verification of content uploaded to social media, and recently updated his Verification Handbook, an essential guide on how to debunk online falsehoods.
https://datajournalism.com/read/handbook/verification-3
AFP news agency has become the world’s biggest fact-checker, with a team of more than 90 journalists working in 80 countries and in 16 languages. Its site shows the international dimension of disinformation and how it is debunked.
A four-part video series by the New York Times on state sponsored disinformation campaigns and the challenges of fighting them.
https://www.nytimes.com/video/what-is-disinformation-fake-news-playlist
The fight against Russian disinformation in Europe – “EUvsDisinfo’s core objective is to increase public awareness and understanding of the Kremlin’s disinformation operations, and to help citizens in Europe and beyond develop resistance to digital information and media manipulation”.
Africa Check was the pioneering fact-checking site on the African continent, where medical disinformation is a major concern.
The UK’s leading fact-checking organisation, Full Fact.
To understand fake news, you need to understand propaganda – and the best starting point is Edward Bernays’ 1928 “Propaganda”, which explained its history and looked at its application in the private sector as public relations. “Whether, in any instance, propaganda is good or bad depends upon the merit of the cause urged, and the correctness of the information published”.
http://www.historyisaweapon.org/defcon1/bernprop.html
You can’t believe people you know are stupid enough to believe fake news and conspiracy theories? Here is some good advice on how to handle these conversations.
https://pen.org/how-to-talk-to-friends-and-family-who-share-misinformation/
As part of his research for his upcoming book on fake news, Eric amassed a large data base of resources, so please get in touch if there are any specific areas that you are working on and could do with some assistance.
You can also follow him on Twitter – @ericwishart. His lists include one on fake new and another, media ethics, which follows allows kinds of accounts related to the media, fact-checking etc.