The Co-Inform project was presented at the AoIR 2019 conference in Brisbane, Australia.  AoIR 2019 was the 20th annual conference of the Association of Internet Researchers, and brought together researchers from around the world, examining the impact of the Internet on society using a multi- and inter-disciplinary lens. This year’s theme, titled “Trust in the System” was well aligned with the Co-Inform activities, and proposals were invited to address issues of Trust: in technologies and platforms; after Cambridge Analytica; governance; in information; in black boxes; in theory; by design, etc.

The event, which was hosted by the Queensland University of Technology, took place from October 2-5, 2019, attracted proposals from 35 countries from all continents, and was well attended, as more than 400 delegates took part in presentations spanning ten parallel tracks.  Sessions included a plenary talk titled “Unpacking ‘Trust in the System’”, which took place on the last day of the conference.  Several sessions were focused on disinformation, fake news and post-truth realities, and trust in the internet.

Co-Inform members, Eleni Kyza and Christiana Varda, gave a presentation during a session titled “Fakes & Post-truth”.

Their presentation, titled “Navigating the Post-Truth Era: Trust, Minsinformation, and Credibility Assessment on Online Social Media”, presented findings from the first Co-Inform co-creation workshop, and discussed what the workshop participants reported as important in order to have trust in online media.

The session was well attended, and each of the presentations built on each other. Other presentations in the session discussed the spread of misinformation by multinational companies in South Africa, and how young people consume information and trust online social media in Austria.

For more information on this event you can visit the AoIR conference website.

The AoIR 2020 conference will take place in Dublin, Ireland, and the conference theme “life” invites researchers to critically consider issues on the symbiosis of humans and machines.