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#defyhatenow Social Media Fact
Checking Strategies
#defyhatenow
Social Media Hate Speech Mitigation Field Guide offers resources and
strategies for peacebuilding to education, civil society, NGO and
community organisations raising awareness of dangerous speech online
and mitigating incitement to violence.
The
Field Guide uses self-paced learning with grassroots tools that can
be used by anyone wishing to mitigate and combat hate speech and the
incitement to violence, online and offline. The #defyhatenow Field
Guide interactive resources and strategies focus on these areas to
build awareness & skills through the responsible use of social
media:
Gender Equality: Safety of Women & Girls and mitigation of
gender-based violence
Course Activities Required for Successful Completion
Read through the articles, guidelines and definitions
Watch all video content
Contribute to the online discussion with fellow students
Read closely and in detail all the lesson information
Finish and submit all exercises, quizzes and tests
To complete the course successfully, plan to spend around 2 hours on each lesson
Prerequisite Knowledge & Skills
Computer Literacy
Basic knowledge of Social Media
Community engagement, leadership and capacity to moderate discussions
Developed
and compiled by the #defyhatenow initiative with selected excerpts from
materials published by collaborative partner organisations &
networks, 2015 – 2018.
To enrol on this course, sign in and create your free account
To enrol on this course, sign in and create your free account
If this is your first visit to this site, you need to register for a free account, then login on this site and click on the Enrol button for this course.
“Fake news” are news stories that are false, where the story itself is fabricated, with no verifiable facts, sources or quotes. In recent years fake news stories have proliferated via social media, in part because they are so easily and quickly shared online. To an untrained eye fake news may pass as legitimate news sources.
Fake news should not be confused or conflated with propaganda.
Propaganda means information, especially of a biased or misleading nature, used to promote or publicise a particular political cause or point of view. It is used primarily to further an agenda - often by presenting facts selectively to encourage a particular synthesis or perception to produce an emotional rather than a rational response.
The proliferation of social media such as Twitter, Facebook and WhatsApp has increased political polarisation and the spread of fake news and propaganda. One might hope the free flow of information would translate into a more informed populace that would make more informed choices. However, recent global and national trends show evidence to the contrary.
This course offers tools and strategies to verify stories and images, and help counter the spread of rumours, misinformation and fake news.
BuzzFeed's Craig Silverman explains how fake news is generated and how you can track it in a talk published by the University of Chicago, Insitute of Politics. February 13th, 2017
QUESTIONS FOR REFLECTION & ONLINE FORUM
What rumours or stories have you heard that may have been fake?
Where did you hear them – via social media, in person, over the phone, reported in the traditional media (news sites, radio, tv)?
How do you decide if the story if true or false?
Was the story propaganda, and if so can you identify by whom?
Who does it benefit? Who does it harm?
What kind of tools do you already have to verify information you receive?
How did these fake news stories or rumours affect you and the community?
Are you aware of stories that might be propaganda for a particular interest?
How do you identify who is the source, and what their intentions are?
Fake news and other problematic digital content aren’t just issues confronting stable democratic nations like the U.S., the U.K., or France. And in countries embroiled in violent conflict like South Sudan, the stakes are much higher: Misinformation fuels bloodshed.
In South Sudan Fake News has deadly consequences Justin Lynch, slate.com June 2017
"The media, including social media, are being used to spread hatred and encourage ethnic polarization. Social media has been used by partisans on all sides, including some senior government officials, to exaggerate incidents, spread falsehoods and veiled threats, or post outright messages of incitement.” November 2017 report by Adama Dieng, the United Nations special adviser on the prevention of genocide.
Online Fake News and Hate Speech are Fueling Genocide in South Sudan, PRI March 2017
This video introduces #defyhatenow workshops, street theatre and dance performances in Juba, with voices from citizens of South Sudan concerning the impact of online hate speech and incitement to violence in their communities. The street drama was developed around issues of hate speech online and incitement to violence offline.
Performances at #peacejam, September 21st; Juba Girls Secondary School and PoC sites. Thanks to the South Sudan Theatre Organisation (SSTO) and Aggrey Jaden Cultural Centre. Published 19 Nov 2016
A significant percentage of information on high-profile events (the
confrontational situation in Ukraine, in our case), does not correspond
to reality. The root cause of this is the use of such information for
governmental propaganda purposes: in this case the news stories are used
not to inform the public, but to impose certain opinions on them, which
is generally beneficial to one side or another. This document will
attempt to highlight the main methods used for identification of lies in
mass media.
It is usually possible to establish the credibility of any photo within a matter of seconds, using a reverse image search on the internet. Many people still instantly believe any “screaming” photo.
Working with a video fake is more difficult than with images, as there is no simplified search tool. If you suspect that a video’s authenticity is questionable you can try one of these methods:
A non-partisan organisation that promotes accuracy and honesty in public debate and the media in Africa. To do this effectively, it is important that we stick to the best practices in fact-checking, recognised by leading non-partisan fact-checking organisations around the world, and that we adhere to the fundamental operating principles of commitment to impartiality, transparency and accuracy. This code of principles is the result of consultations between Africa Check and other non-partisan fact-checkers from around the world.
Craig Silverman, a journalist and editor of Regret the Error, a blog about media errors, accuracy and verification, has drawn on the work of media experts to compile a best practice guide for social media verification.
Quick Reference Tips on Verifying the Source, Content, Pictures & Video.
Mark
Little from Storyful talks about the value of the “human
algorithm”—applying people to the problem. “Every news event in the age
of social media creates more than a conversation, it creates a
community. When news breaks, a self-selecting network gathers to talk
about the story. Some are witnesses - the creators of original content -
others are amplifiers - passing that content on to a wider audience.
And in every group are the filters, the people who everyone else looks
to for judgement.” Columbia Journalism Review: Best Practices for Social Media Verification by Craig Silverman
The truth is out there. But online, it feels like it's harder than ever to find. Consider this sobering statistic from a recent MIT study: on Twitter, lies are 70% more likely to be retweeted than facts. Somehow, the information age became the misinformation age.
Where do we go from here?
From campaign bots to conspiracy videos, it’s harder than ever to discover the truth online. In conversation with The New York Times’ Sheera Frenkel, Data For Democracy Policy Lead and Mozilla Fellow Renee DiResta, and DisInfoMedia founder Jestin Coler, we navigate the age of disinformation. It’s the season finale of IRL, recorded live in San Francisco on March 18th, 2018.
Oxford Dictionary’s word of the year 2016 was post-truth. Together with “fake news”, this is one of the most widely discussed digital phenomena in recent years. Why should we care, and can we do anything about it? In this Medea Vox episode, media scholars Pille Pruulmann-Vengerfeldt
and Johan Farkas discuss fake news and post-truth in relation to
democracy.
Medea is a transdisciplinary research lab at Malmö University, Sweden, where researchers address societal challenges through experiments and interventions. The research focus is on media, design, and public engagement. Learn more about Medea.
We analyze conversations and content across digital platforms — from
mainstream to fringe networks — to make sense of what’s happening on
social media.
Una Hakika (Swahili for ‘Are you sure?’) is a
program launched in 2013 to use telecommunications in Kenya’s
violence-prone Tana Delta in order to counter misinformation which
contributed to several massacres and heightened inter-communal tensions.
Looking AheadWe look to the future of the project and the universal applicability of the lessons learned from it.
Una Hakika is an information service which provides subscribers with
neutral, accurate information in response to rumours that arise in the
Tana Delta. Most of the communication for Una Hakika takes place through
SMS (short messaging service, or text messaging, as it is more commonly
known in North America) as well as voice calls and the engagement of
volunteer community ambassadors. People who hear rumours can report them
by sending a toll-free SMS to our short code – 21512 – which
essentially acts as a rumour verification hotline. Once Una Hakika
receives a report about a rumour, our team goes into action to verify it
and report back to the community about whether the rumour is true or
not. This process involves gathering a lot of information from various
different sources and trying to make sense of it while mapping
subsequent reports of rumours to see how they develop and flow through
the area. That’s where WikiRumours comes in as our purpose-built
software for managing the Una Hakika workflow.
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If this is your first visit to this site, you need to register for a free account, then login on this site and click on the Enrol button for this course.
We invite you to discuss this subject, but remember this is a public forum.
Please be polite, and avoid your passions turning into contempt for others. We may delete posts that are rude or aggressive; or edit posts containing contact details or links to other websites.
Course reviews
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If this is your first visit to this site, you need to register for a free account, then login on this site and click on the Enrol button for this course.
Any third-party materials featured in this course are used with permission and are not ours to give away. These materials are not subject to the Creative Commons licence. See the
terms and conditions and our FAQs. Please see the course acknowledgements for further information about copyright details.
For further information, take a look at our frequently asked questions which may give you the support you need.
You can start learning at any time. By signing up and enrolling you can track your progress and earn a Statement of Participation upon completion, all for free.
Any third-party materials featured in this course are used with permission and are not ours to give away. These materials are not subject to the Creative Commons licence. See the
terms and conditions and our FAQs. Please see the course acknowledgements for further information about copyright details.
For further information, take a look at our frequently asked questions which may give you the support you need.
