Since the Project on Computational Propaganda was founded in 2012, we’ve observed increased scrutiny being placed on governments and tech platforms to combat the problem of disinformation. With mounting pressure, these institutions have started to mobilize substantial resources to investigate and manage this issue. The development of useful tools and resources for civil society groups, however, has been slower.
Given the critical role of civil society in democratic life, and the multitude of issues that disinformation poses, our team hosted a series of workshops with civil society practitioners in different cities with the twin goals of 1) bringing our research into closer touch with non-governmental organizations that are directly impacted by disinformation, and 2) learning more from and co-creating knowledge with civil society experts about the ongoing impact of online disinformation on their work. The initial workshop series was designed primarily for organizations who work on issues that are likely to be targets of disinformation, including but not limited to human rights, racism, gender and LGBTQI+ justice, religious freedom, and immigration.
The outputs of each workshop included a synthesis of the day’s discussions and a collaboratively developed resource guide. These guides included suggested resources from participants and from our team of researchers. In order to share our learning with a broader audience, we built the ComProp Navigator, where we have collated and organized these resources for you to explore. We hope the tool will be helpful to civil society organizations, but also the general public, as they go about understanding, preparing for, and responding to issues caused by online disinformation. We are grateful to all our workshop partners and participants for making this guide possible. (Copied from website)