commbox Disinformation & Misinformation

Information Saves Lives: Tackling Rumors, Myths and Misinformation in the COVID-19 Outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo

Arcata, Calif.; Washington, DC: Internews; USAID (2021), 24 pp.

"In the Eastern DRC where the 10th Ebola epidemic was coming to an end, the advent of COVID-19 raised additional concern of dealing with two major health emergencies at the same time with implications for effective audience engagement, and compliance to public health measures. These concerns came ag ... more

Toward a Globally Networked Counter-Disinformation Response

Kevin Sheives

Global Insights (2021), 8 pp.

"A loosely connected, constantly learning global network of counter-disinformation responders—with the benefit of greater access to platforms and additional resources from funders—can serve as a bulwark against evolving threats to the integrity of the information space. Although these threats tr ... more

Digital Misinformation / Disinformation and Children

Philip N. Howard, Lisa-Maria Neudert, Nayana Prakash

UNICEF (2021), 35 pp.

"Children can be targets and objects of mis/disinformation, spreaders or creators of it, and opponents of mis/disinformation in actively seeking to counter falsehoods. There is insufficient data available to researchers and policymakers to get a clear and comprehensive picture of how susceptible chi ... more

No Excuse for Abuse: What Social Media Companies Can Do Now to Combat Online Harassment and Empower Users

PEN America (2021), 7 pp.

"To ensure that social media becomes safer, more open, and more equitable for all users, platforms like Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram must prioritize curbing online harassment. In this report, PEN America proposes concrete, actionable changes that social media companies should make immediately to ... more

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Political messaging and information disorder during the 2020 Ghanaian elections: A multi-study analysis of verified misinformation and political social media engagement

Adedeji Adekunle

Abuja: Premium Times Centre for Investigative Journalism (PTCIJ) (2021), 37 pp.

USAID-BRAC Bangladesh Digital Ecosystem Activity: After Action Review Report

Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee (BRAC); Light Castle Partners (2021), 50 pp.

Cyber Capabilities and National Power: A Net Assessment

London et al.: International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) (2021), 174 pp.

"This report sets out a new methodology for assessing cyber power, and then applies it to 15 states: Four members of the Five Eyes intelligence alliance – the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada and Australia; Three cyber-capable allies of the Five Eyes states – France, Israel and Japan; F ... more

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Information Dystopia and Philippine Democracy: Protecting the Public Sphere from Disinformation
Top Insights

Yvonne T. Chua, Nicole Curato, Jonathan Corpus Ong

Internews (2021), 98 pp.

"The Philippines is one of the first countries where the potential for online disinformation threats to undermine democratic processes, especially during elections, was noticed [...] This report takes a deep look at an online survey that Internews conducted, explores the cultural and emotional dimen ... more

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Sticking to the Facts, Building trust: Our Cure for Disinformation

Lausanne: Fondation Hirondelle (2021), 9 pp.

"Fondation Hirondelle's approach to disinformation centres on the fundamental principles of journalism and on the lessons learned from over 25 years of applying these principles in highly fragile contexts, where access to reliable information for the majority is not a given, and where rumours, hate ... more

Checking PolitiFact’s Fact-Checks

Sakari Nieminen, Valterri Sankari

Journalism Studies, volume 22, issue 3 (2021), pp. 358-378

"In this article we examine PolitiFact’s fact-checking process. We collect a random sample of 858 fact-checks and evaluate them in the light of criteria based on or inspired by fact-checking literature and the International Fact-checking Network’s code of principles. Our analysis reveals the fol ... more

Trends in combating fake news on social media: A survey

Botambu Collins, Dinh Tuyen Hoang, Ngoc Thanh Nguyen, Dosam Hwang

Journal of Information and Telecommunication, volume 5, issue 2 (2021), pp. 247-266

"This study explores the various methods of combating fake news on social media such as Natural Language Processing, Hybrid model. We surmised that detecting fake news is a challenging and complex issue, however, it remains a workable task. Revelation in this study holds that the application of hybr ... more

Authoritarianism and Gendered Disinformation: A Case Study of the Philippines

Alex Kunze, Alice Schyllander, Katie Chambers, Nick Zuroski

Washington, DC: Elliott School of International Affairs Global Capstone; #ShePersisted (2021), 39 pp.

"First, disinformation is enabled by the Philippines' history of colonialism and martial law, high social media usage and low digital literacy, compounding crises, strongman governance, and sexist and misogynist rhetoric from elected leaders. While the first three factors create conditions that gene ... more

Review of social science research on the impact of countermeasures against influence operations

Laura Courchesne, Julia Ilhardt, Jacob N. Shapiro

Harvard Kennedy School Misinformation Review, volume 2, issue 5 (2021), 17 pp.

"Based on key term searches and forward and backward citation mapping, we constructed a review of 223 studies published since 1972 related to countermeasures designed to combat influence operations. Each identified study included: (1) a source of variation in exposure to countermeasures; (2) a clear ... more

Information Disorder and Mainstream Media in Sri Lanka: A Case Study

Anisha Dias Banadaranaike (coord.)

Verité Research (VR) (2021), 34 pp.

"This study attempts to contribute to literature that analyzes the role of Sri Lanka’s mainstream media as a producer and distributor of information disorder. For this purpose, a case study approach is used to evaluate reporting on Dr. Segu Siyabdeen Mohamed Shafi. The study focuses on the Sri Lan ... more

How to Counter Disinformation: 10 Strategic Demands

Ann Cathrin Riedel

Potsdam: Friedrich Naumann Stiftung (2021), 8 pp.

"1 Words matter: Use the correct terms 2 Images and emotions: Understanding the entire range of disinformation 3 Creating structures for the digital education of every age group 4 Securing the freedom of expression: Smart regulation against overblocking 5 A modern constitutional state 6 Focus on tec ... more

Democracy and Fake News

Serena Giusti, Elisa Piras (eds.)

London; New York: Routledge (2021), xiv, 232 pp.

"This book explores the challenges that disinformation, fake news, and post-truth politics pose to democracy from a multidisciplinary perspective. The authors analyse and interpret how the use of technology and social media as well as the emergence of new political narratives has been progressively ... more

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MENA Monitor: Arabic COVID-19 Vaccine Misinformation Online

Ciarán O'Connor, Moustafa Ayad

London: Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD) (2021), 19 pp.

"Conspiracy theories about COVID-19 and the subsequent development and rollout of COVID-19 vaccines are rampant across Arabic-language Facebook pages and groups. They are also linked to a larger network of anti-vaccination websites, Twitter accounts and YouTube channels across the web. Researchers f ... more

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Understudied Digital Platforms in the Philippines

José Mari Hall Lanuza, Rossine Fallorina, Samuel Cabbuag

Internews (2021), 92 pp.

"Internews’ work on disinformation in the Philippines aims at uniting the strengths of stakeholders in the media community, civil society, academia, private sector, and social media companies, along six axes: factchecking and myth busting, media and information literacy, public policy advocacy, di ... more

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The Road Ahead: Mapping Civil Society Responses to Disinformation

Samantha Bradshaw, Lisa-Maria Neudert

Washington, DC: National Endowment for Democracy (NED) (2021), 27 pp.

"Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) bring a wide range of skill sets to the problem of digital disinformation. Some organizations focus on digital media literacy and education; others engage in advocacy and policy work. Another segment has developed expertise in fact-checking and verification. Other ... organizations have developed refined technical skills for extracting and analyzing data from social media platforms. This research yielded several clear observations about the state of CSO responses to disinformation and, in turn, suggests several recommendations for paths forward. • Prioritize Skill Diffusion and Knowledge Transfer. Civil society organizations seeking funding for counter-disinformation initiatives should emphasize the importance of skill diffusion and knowledge-transfer initiatives. The siloed nature of disinformation research points to a growing need to blend technical expertise with deep cultural and political knowledge. • CSO researchers lack sufficient access to social media data. Survey respondents identified insufficient access to data as a challenge. Sometimes data are not made available to CSOs; in other instances, data are made available in formats that are not workable for meaningful research purposes. Unequal access to the data that private companies do provide can exacerbate regional inequities, and the nature of data sharing by social media platforms can unduly shape the space for inquiry by civil society and other researchers. Funders, platforms, and other key actors should develop approaches that provide more consistent, inclusive data access to CSOs. • Duplicative programming hampers innovation. CSOs drawing on similar tools, approaches, and techniques to meet similar goals pointed to three main factors preventing more specialized, innovative initiatives: lack of coordination, lack of specific expertise, and lack of flexible funding. Community building and collaboration among relevant organizations deserve more investment, as do initiatives that partner larger, established organizations with smaller or growing ones, or pool efforts, skill sets, and expertise to encourage diverse research by design rather than by coincidence. • Relationships with tech platforms vary across regions. Surveyed CSOs often held simultaneously skeptical and positive opinions about their relationships with social media companies. Some receive preferential access to data and even funding for their work (raising concerns about independence), while others report a lack of responsiveness from company representatives. In the Global South and Eastern Europe, many CSOs expressed concern that platforms failed to meaningfully engage with them on issues of critical concern. • More flexible funding and more diverse research are both necessary. To encourage greater platform accountability across varied geographic contexts, CSOs and their funders should draw on the perspectives of specific, under-analyzed communities." (Executive summary, page 3-4) more