Practitioners must make several key decisions in the counter-disinformation program design phase. Those decisions include identifying a specific set of problems the program will address, developing a logic through which the program will address that problem, selecting between alternative activities, and deciding who will be the primary targets or beneficiaries of those activities.
Effective democracy, human rights, and governance (DRG) programming to respond to disinformation requires practitioners to make accurate inferences about the underlying causes of information disorders and about the effects of their interventions. Programs to counter disinformation often rely on a research component to identify problems, to identify potential targets or beneficiaries of an intervention, to develop and adapt program content, to monitor implementation, and to evaluate results.
| Country | Background |
|---|---|
| Global | The Poynter Institute’s International Fact-Checking Network has developed a Code of Principles for fact-checkers to follow globally that includes standards around the methodology of the practice. |
Parties are a critical component of political systems, and their adherence to normative frameworks is a challenging but central part of any political system’s susceptibility to disinformation and other negative forms of content. When candidates and parties adhere to normative standards, for instance, to refrain from the use of computational propaganda methods and the promotion of false narratives, it can have a positive effect on the integrity of information in political systems.
Written by Bret Barrowman, Senior Specialist for Research and Evaluation, Evidence and Learning Practice at the International Republican Institute
As demonstrated by these preexisting examples, the private sector is one of the central components of the information ecosystem and has some internal guidelines and norms regulating how it is run. However, there are important normative frameworks that have both induced and encouraged compliance with global human rights and democratic frameworks, and specifically code focused on disinformation, hate speech, and related issues.
Many normative frameworks have developed to govern the online space, addressing issues related to traditional human rights concepts such as freedom of expression, privacy, and good governance. Some of these connect with building normative standards for the online space around disinformation to help promote information integrity but address different aspects of the Internet, technology, and network governance.
Written by Daniel Arnaudo, Advisor for Information Strategies at the National Democratic Institute
Civil society plays a critical and multifarious role in information integrity infrastructure, but most organizations operating in this space are under-resourced, low capacity, and otherwise nascent.
International cooperation is a critical factor behind civil society success. In addition to the leverage issue vis-à-vis companies discussed earlier in the chapter, international cooperation allows civil society to share best practices in the rapidly evolving fields of digital forensics and counter-messaging, and to share information about emerging transnational threats and the proliferation of disinformation toolkits used by malign actors both foreign and domestic.