Global election follow-up from Meedan
Learn how we’re collaborating with partners to fight misinformation.
Hey Checklisters!
We hope you’re staying safe and healthy.
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✅ 2024 is an unprecedented year for elections.
✅ We’re working with partners around the world to fight misinformation and promote transparency.
✅ We share initial insights from recent elections and preview what’s ahead in a handful of countries.
Top Comment
by the Editorial Team
Now that we’re three months into a monumental year for elections all over the world, we thought we’d take a moment to share some updates with you about what we’re doing to combat misinformation for just a few of the campaigns we’re participating in throughout the globe.
Take a look to learn what’s happening in Indonesia, India, Togo and the Kurdistan region of Iraq.
In particular, we’d like to highlight how anonymized information-sharing among Indonesian partners on Meedan’s Check software solution helped enable better insights into election-related topics circulating on WhatsApp.
Indonesian electoral topics on WhatsApp reveal voter questions about surveillance, corruption
Meedan fact-checking partners Mafindo, Tempo and Liputan 6 — and a network of more than 100 media organizations — exchanged information with local audiences to debunk misinformation on WhatsApp in the lead-up to the 2024 Indonesian elections. Data from the project, powered by Check and the CekFakta coalition of fact-checkers, shines a light on viral trends and narratives.
Coalition WhatsApp tiplines saw a total of 14,809 submissions between October 2023 and February 2024. Trending topics observed during this partnership included:
Interest in a program promoting youth entrepreneurship and trade.
Fear about the possibility of surveillance and scrutiny of online communications.
Concern about a perceived threat of outsized Chinese influence in Indonesia.
Desire to boycott specific parties based on ongoing international conflicts.
Disappointment toward the incumbent president.
Read the full story: “Indonesia election 2024: Corruption, surveillance among top narratives on WhatsApp.“
Meedan to support partners fighting misinformation during the 2024 Indian elections
In a joint initiative with The Quint, BOOM, Factly and Newschecker, Meedan is making its technology available for monitoring viral misinformation shared on closed messaging apps ahead of the 2024 Lok Sabha parliamentary elections in India.
Coalition organizations will share tipline data to find out what voters want to know about elections and polling. The four partner groups will share anonymized WhatsApp content using Meedan's Check software, allowing each organization to view fact-check requests from one another’s audiences and to collectively monitor the viral narratives spreading on messaging apps.
Read the full story: “Fighting misinformation during the 2024 Indian elections.”
Togo fact-checkers capture gendered disinformation during elections
To gather cases of gendered disinformation during the upcoming April 2024 Togolese elections, the Africa Women Journalism Project launched Naka — a Facebook messaging bot powered by Check — in partnership with TogoCheck. TogoCheck is an independent and nonpartisan autonomous fact-checking media organization based in Lomé, Togo’s capital.
The group’s ongoing outreach campaign encourages people to report occurrences of gendered disinformation they’ve found in online conversations and electoral campaigns. This project is part of Meedan’s cross-regional initiative on gendered disinformation during elections.
First Kurdish-language bot to be deployed ahead of elections in Kurdistan region of Iraq
Our fact-checking partners Fatabyyano are getting ready to launch the first Kurdish-language fact-checking bot ahead of the June 2024 elections in the Kurdistan region of Iraq. Citizens in the region will be able to send their questions or claims to the bot via WhatsApp or Telegram and automatically receive fact-checks produced by the team at Fatabyyano.
Townsquare
April 10, 2024
The call for proposals for RightsCon South Korea will open on April 10. Applicants can host events both online and offline, including roundtables, workshops, lightning talks and tech demos.
April 21, 2024
The International Women’s Media Foundation is accepting applications for the Elizabeth Neuffer Fellowship. Applications are open to journalists of all nationalities and are due April 21.
April 24, 2024
The Centre for Socio-Legal Studies at the University of Oxford is accepting applications for the Oxford Media Policy Summer Institute until April 24.
What else we’re reading
“Election disinformation takes a big leap with AI being used to deceive worldwide”
“A wave of AI deepfakes tied to elections in Europe and Asia has coursed through social media for months, serving as a warning for more than 50 countries heading to the polls this year.”
(Associated Press)
“A window into Facebook closes as Meta sets a date to shut down CrowdTangle”
“Facebook has argued CrowdTangle data can be incomplete or misleading.”
“Journalists and researchers … used CrowdTangle as a way to glean information about misinformation and other potentially harmful content.”
(Nieman Lab)
“A case for making our AI chatbots more confrontational”
“One of the potential deployments for a confrontational AI that the researchers came up with was in intervention, to shake a user out of a bad habit.”
(Fast Company)
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