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Co-Inform project moves towards its end

Authors: Mattias Svahn, eGovlab, Stockholm 

 

Co-inform started in 2018. It was a long time ago, but there was a lot of misinformation around back then also, at that time Co-inform was focused on disinformation about migration. We had then only an idea of building a plug-in and a dashboard for identifying, tracking and combating misinformation. Now they are ready and we have them, with a circa 70% accuracy, really good for an AI system. 

 

Disinformation is not a new phenomenon, we have at our offices a framed article on combating rumours, – from 1946. We have over the years only seen more and more disinformation plaguing society. 

 

Co-inform has always had a sociotechnical perspective. That means that we took as our point of departure problems and issues in society and then we found technological solutions for these. That led us  to a work strategy that really allowed for dipping deep in society – co-creation. 

 

Co-inform was based around workshops with stakeholder groups to ensure that the anti-disinformation tools we designed would actually be suitable “on the ground” for our stakeholders, journalists, policymakers and citizens. 

 

As mentioned, things have changed since 2018. We succeeded in holding two sets of workshops in real life, with stakeholders in place in a room, discussing, testing ideas and concepts in Greece, Sweden and Austria. Then we all know what happened in the beginning of 2020, making meetings in real life impossible. 

 

Though, while meetings in real life had become impossible the socio-technical need to relate to the  stakeholder groups remained. What did we do? – We invented online workshops.  

 

During 2020 and 2021 we, like all others, developed new working methods for working 100% online. Everybody did that; though for a sociotechnical based project founded in meeting people in real life and divining their cares and issues, it was a poignant success in itself to be able to go on. 

Co-Inform’s mission is to foster critical thinking and digital literacy.

Academic surveys have shown that online misinformation is becoming more difficult to identify. Online misinformation has the potential to deceive even readers with strong literacy skills. Our goal is to provide citizens, journalists, and policymakers with tools to spot ‘fake news’ online, understand how they spread, and obtain access to verified information.

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Co-Inform Copyright 2021
Disclaimer

Co-inform project is co-funded by Horizon 2020 – the Framework Programme for Research and Innovation (2014-2020)
H2020-SC6-CO-CREATION-2016-2017 (CO-CREATION FOR GROWTH AND INCLUSION)
Type of action: RIA (Research and Innovation action)
Proposal number: 770302

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