From International Fact-Checking Network <factually@poynter.org>
Subject A new chapter for fact-checking: information integrity
Date December 5, 2024 2:20 PM
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A new chapter for fact-checking: information integrity
Fact-checkers from around the world at GlobalFact 11 conference in Sarajevo on June 26, 2024. (IFCN)

By Peter Cunliffe-Jones and Guy Berger
Alarm about disinformation and misinformation surged around the world after 2016. The moment seemed dramatic. Countries experienced unanticipated election outcomes after false news reports surged on social media.

The events inspired researchers Claire Wardle and Hossein Derakhshan to coin a new term for what was happening – “information disorder.” It implies a dysfunctionality in the information system, caused by the spread of false information, in the way that a medical disorder disrupts our individual health.

Fact-checking groups existed long before the events of 2016, but soon fighting dis- and misinformation became a rallying cry for fact-checkers and civil society groups alarmed by what they were seeing: false messages that spread virally online, going hand in hand with political rhetoric that promoted false claims through mainstream media and in-person events.

Fact-checking, they believed, would help treat this new disorder. If only it were so simple.

In fact, media leaders in Africa realized early on that in many parts of the world, the problem of information disorder is not limited to the spread of false claims. At a November 2017 meeting at the Johannesburg offices of Africa Check, the leaders of media and civil society organizations from a dozen countries agreed that they were seeing something more. False information was one thing, but in Africa and elsewhere in the Global South — and even in the Global North during natural disasters, security incidents and the COVID-19 health crisis — it was combined with a lack of access to accurate information. That was paired with the human tendency toward motivated reasoning and a lack of critical thinking.

Simply fighting against “dis- and misinformation” was clearly not enough.

Soon, the framing of “fighting information disorder” was dismissed by opponents as a flawed endeavor; they argued for an information marketplace where individuals would fend for themselves. Authoritarian governments, too, used “information disorder” as an inverse of their own quests for “information order,” which meant officially defined “truth” and state-created agencies that determined what information was acceptable. In other words, “information disorder” was getting co-opted.

To avoid these risks, what’s needed now is a framing that captures the full scope of fact-checkers’ work — and shows what they’re fighting for, not just what they’re against—a framing that would be more resilient in the face of attacks.

Enter the recent concept of “information integrity.” The term is now being promoted by some fact-checkers and international organizations, like the UNDP ([link removed]) and the G20 ([link removed]) .

The Africa Facts Network — formed out of that 2017 Johannesburg meeting — recently committed to fighting for information integrity by engaging “civil society, responsive governments, technology platforms, regional, global and multilateral institutions and communities to build information hygiene, integrity and entrench information resilience.” This was the core of a statement ([link removed]) released after the sixth annual summit of African fact-checkers, which we attended in Accra, Ghana, in October. The statement highlighted the need to address gendered disinformation, linguistic diversity, vulnerable and offline communities, the climate crisis, public distrust of the media, resource challenges and politically sensitive environments as areas of special concern for African fact-checkers.

Achieving information integrity certainly requires fact-checking. But the concept also points clearly to other indispensable preconditions, which many fact-checking organizations also address. Notably:
* Promoting accurate and independent journalism
* Opening up state (and, as appropriate, private sector) information and data archives
* Reinforcing people’s abilities to resist junk content, and strengthening their agency as critical consumers and producers of content

Information integrity not only describes a positive goal, but the formulation can also help counter the attacks that fact-checkers are part of a so-called “censorship industrial complex.” Information integrity underlines the idea that fact-checking is actually an essential part of exercising free speech.
Read the full article here ([link removed]) .


Africa’s fact-checking community shows its growing strength in collaboration, investigations

Participants at the 2024 Africa Facts conference in Accra, Ghana. (Africa Check photo)
By Angie Drobnic Holan

Accra, Ghana — The violent dispute in northern Ghana was intensely local. As the report described it, it was a “sporadic ethnic conflict between the Kusasis and Mamprusis over rights to the Bawku chieftaincy skin (throne).”

What concerned fact-checking journalists from across Africa was that the violence was being spurred and coordinated via social media.

“For over two years, a violent inter-ethnic and chieftaincy conflict has had Bawku in a chokehold. Hundreds have been killed and adverse effects on socio-economic development have impacted daily life in Bawku,” the report from GhanaFact said. “A close to one-year-long open-source digital investigation ([link removed]) of some social media pages, groups, and individual accounts shows an obvious weaponization of social media – WhatsApp, Facebook, and TikTok – in perpetuating the conflict.”

Rabiu Alhassan, GhanaFact’s managing editor, presented the report and how it came together to a full room of fact-checkers at the annual Africa Facts conference, held in October in Accra, where GhanaFact is based. The conference brings together regional fact-checkers to network and exchange best practices.

Alhassan walked the audience through how journalists identified, documented and archived the social media posts; mapped episodes of violence across time; and collaborated with other journalists to document the violence.

In its conclusion, the report took a cue from the solutions journalism movement to offer recommendations for the government, regulatory agencies, civil society and tech companies, including increased monitoring and enforcement of existing laws and standards.

After the presentation, Alhassan told me the session drew broad interest because the underlying dynamics have been noted in other conflicts.

"The similarity of our problems on the continent in relation to ineffective platform moderation, be it spreading of hate speech, doxxing and inciting people to violence became evident. I had colleagues reaching out from South Sudan, Ethiopia and Nigeria, and encouraging us to collaborate in highlighting these challenges,” Alhassan said.

In addition to Alhassan’s session, other conference panels focused on elections and election fact-checking coalitions; fact-checking in areas with low literacy and lack of data; platform transparency and data access across Africa; best mental health practices for fact-checkers and journalists; and fact-checking health-related topics. (As director of the International Fact-Checking Network, I presented the benefits of adhering to the IFCN Code of Principles ([link removed]) ’ high standards of transparency and nonpartisanship, while my colleague Alanna Dvorak presented on effective grant writing ([link removed]) .)


** Africa’s regional diversity
------------------------------------------------------------

One of the conference’s other distinctions was showing the diversity of Africa’s many geographic regions. Sessions showcased work from French-speaking fact-checkers doing work in countries like Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger, as well as North African fact-checking projects in Arabic in Libya, Tunisia, Algeria and Egypt. The Africa Facts network reports that 28% of its current member organizations operate primarily in French and 23% in Arabic.

Fact-checkers in both communities shared key insights during their respective panel discussions, said Ahmed Khorwat, community manager of the Arab Fact-Checkers Network. A French-speaking panel focused on bad actors that willfully spread misinformation, while the North African fact-checkers discussed digital challenges. The two panels “offered surprising depth, particularly regarding the unique misinformation dynamics in conflict zones, the imposed political challenges on fact-checkers, and the role of digital platforms in managing public information adding an extra layer of safety,” he said.

Paul-Joël Kamtchang, a data journalist from Cameroon and secretary general of the Plateforme Africaine des Fact-checkers Francophones (African platform of French-speaking fact-checkers), said this year’s conference was important in raising the profile of fact-checking in French. He noted that French fact-checkers are concerned about access to resources such as grants and tech tools. Some resources are only available in English, while some tools are unaffordable.

“Economic insecurity and the absence of viable business models in the media do not help them to access paid tools,” he said.

One specific outcome of the conference was that 50 fact-checking organizations signed a declaration ([link removed]) committing to key actions to uphold information integrity.

Read the full article here ([link removed]…n-investigations/) .


** Research: Outrage drives misinformation sharing
------------------------------------------------------------

Misinformation evokes more outrage than trustworthy news and is more likely to be shared, according to new research ([link removed]) published in Science.

The paper, which included eight studies across multiple platforms, also revealed that when news articles evoked outrage in experiments, participants were more likely to share misinformation, even though their ability to discern truth from falsehood was unaffected.

“Most misinfo research assumes people care about epistemic motives, and interventions are based on this,” said William J. Brady, one of the authors. “Our work highlights the importance of understanding when misinfo is likely to be driven by non-epistemic motives. Accuracy-based interventions may be less effective here.”
Read the unlocked version here ([link removed]) .


** Quick Hits
------------------------------------------------------------
* Factchequeado with The announced “fraud” that never arrived: how the disinforming narrative vanished after Trump's victory ([link removed]) .
* CORRECTIV’s Max Bernhard, Alexej Hock and Sarah Thust on how their investigation ([link removed]) exposed Russia’s Doppelganger propaganda campaign, leading EU-based IT companies to block services and disrupt key infrastructure, leaving most links and websites inactive.
* Chequeado’s Franco Piccato with “New Democratic Commitments in the Era of AI, ([link removed]) ” on rebuilding trust and creating a shared reality to counter misinformation.
* The BBC’s Geeta Pandey with “Top Indian fact-checker in court for post calling out hate speech ([link removed]) ,” detailing the latest case against Alt News co-founder Mohammed Zubair.
* StopFake’s Olena Churanova with "Russia's Blueprint for a Fact-Checkers Association: What's the Real Agenda? ([link removed]) ," detailing how the Kremlin uses fact-checking as a weapon to spread propaganda and discredit legitimate fact-checking efforts.
* Reuters on Australia’s government dropping its “plan for fines for social media giants enabling misinformation ([link removed]) .”
* Factchequeado’s Emily Elena Dugdale, Rina Palta and Rafael Olavarría with “AI Models Falter Answering Election Questions in Spanish ([link removed]) ,” revealing disparities in accuracy between English and Spanish responses, with Spanish queries often generating misinformation. Main article ([link removed]) and examples ([link removed]) available in Spanish.

Have ideas or suggestions for the next issue of Factually? Email us at factually@poynter.org (mailto:factually@poynter.org)
Angie Drobnic Holan
Director, IFCN
aholan@poynter.org (mailto:aholan@poynter.org)
Enock Nyariki
Communications Manager, IFCN
enyariki@poynter.org (mailto:enyariki@poynter.org)

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