To mark Global Media Literacy Week, hibrid.info is launching an information campaign to raise awareness about manipulation and misinformation intervention.
source: EU vs Disinfo
We all need to better understand how disinformation works and how to protect ourselves against it. These materials, which will be published this week, aim to teach readers how to judge the relevance and credibility of sources and their content, as well as how to respond to disinformation. These skills, according to the recently published Digital Competence Framework for Citizens (DigComp 2.2), are part of the digital skills of the 21st century and are essential for informed citizens.
The threat of disinformation requires a very wide range of responses. In line with the theme of this year’s Global MIL Week: “Nourishing Trust: A Must for Media and Information Education,” we spoke to world-renowned fact-checkers and media specialists about their trust in the media and ways to respond to disinformation.
Maria Ressa, Nobel Peace Prize laureate, journalist and CEO of Rappler, a fact-checking organization in the Philippines, sees trust as the foundation of democracy. “If you don’t have facts, you can’t have truth. Without truth, you can’t have trust. Without these three, we have no shared reality, we have no ability to solve any problem, we have no democracy.” She adds: “Don’t think of disinformation as a lie, think of it as a behavior modification system. In the full sense of the word, it’s a virus that changes the way you see the world.” Ressa recommends stopping sharing content on social media “if you feel angry, when you hate someone or you’re afraid for your future – that’s when social media makes you move and share.”
According to Vadym Miskyi, a fact-checker from the Ukrainian organization Detector media and podcast author on Russia's war of aggression in Ukraine, disinformation is a corrosive force, created when facts are distorted. The antidote? Media education, namely "the power of having confidence in where your information comes from. The power of being informed."
Ksenia Luchenko, PhD, a journalist and former head of media education programs at Russian universities, notes that “propagandists and conscious producers of fakes target the weakest and most delicate thing in every human being – one’s feelings, traumas, hopes and fears – and cynically use them for manipulation.” She sees a possible solution in digital literacy and skills: “people with a high level of media literacy are less susceptible to manipulation; they do not panic, but feel safe, which allows them to be effective and calm.”
Of course, there is no “one-size-fits-all” solution to healing a world of distorted facts and eroded trust. However, collectively we can increase our immunity to disinformation and fight back effectively.