2024 is being described as the ‘Super Election Year’ with almost half the population of the world going to the polls in 2024 (New York Times). Accurate and reliable information is required to make informed decisions – especially around elections. See below for tips, tools and resources, from a range of sources, to help people verify the accuracy and reliability of the information that they will use to decide who they want to represent them:
Be Election Smart: Ahead of the European Elections, EDMO and the EDMO Hubs are promoting the #BeElectionSmart campaign which highlights practical tips and resources to help people develop their media literacy skills.
Supporting Information Integrity around Elections: On May 15 MLI hosted a webinar on Supporting Information Integrity around Elections with contributions from Factchecking.ie, EDMO Ireland, Coimisiún Toghcháin and Coimisiún na Meán.
Prebunking to preempt manipulation online: Google and Jigsaw are running a prebunking campaign ahead of the European Parliamentary elections. The campaign teaches audiences how to spot common manipulation techniques before they encounter them. The campaign website includes short videos which will run on social media as well as explainers and a quiz to test yourself. Tá siad anseo as Gaeilge freisin.
Learn about Ireland’s Electoral System: People are often confused about the electoral system and bad actors spread false information about it. The Electoral Commission, an Coimisiún Toghcháin, has a learning hub that explains how Ireland’s democratic system and electoral events work. An Coimisiún Toghcháin, has also created three 30-second social media videos warning people to treat every day like April Fool’s Day, and featuring people being shown headlines that may or may not be true. The campaign uses April Fool’s Day pranks to illustrate why people need to apply the critical thinking skills to combat false information about elections. View the campaign here.
TheJournal Knowledge Bank: TheJournal’s FactCheck team launched Knowledge Bank to host a toolkit with videos, tips, and guides on how to source reliable information and develop your skills in verifying images and online content. It also offers a background guide to key topics that tend to attract bad information including elections . The site will be updated by the FactCheck team. Visit the Knowledge Bank.
Be Media Smart: Be Media Smart is a national media literacy campaign facilitated by Media Literacy Ireland that encourages people to Stop, Think and Check that the information they are getting is accurate and reliable. The website hosts accessible resources including ‘ask the expert’ Q&As, information about factchecking, and videos of previous webinars. The website is also available in Irish. Visit Be Media Smart.
Disinfo Bulletin: This daily newsletter from the EDMO Task Force on 2024 EU Elections delivers concise updates on urgent disinformation narratives surrounding the upcoming Elections for the European Parliament, including insights from fact-checking networks and community initiatives, directly to your inbox every weekday around noon, until election day. Subscribe to Disinfo Bulletin.
Tackling Disinformation – A Learning Guide: This is a list of tools and resources from DW Akademie on countering disinformation.
Check Your Sources campaign: The European Commission and the European Regulators Group for Audiovisual Media Services (ERGA) have produced a video to remind people to protect themselves from manipulation. It is available in all EU languages including Irish.
Resources from the European Parliament: A series of three videos from the European Parliament explores the ‘tactics used to trick you’ and aims to help people understand the mechanics of disinformation and how to sort the fact from the fiction. If you are an educator you might be interest in this Educational Toolkit from the European Parliament and if you want to know about how the European Parliament is fighting threats to EU democracy see this blog post about fighting foreign interference and there is also a page exploring how free and fair elections are ensured. A list of ways to tackle disinformation tips from together.eu is available below.
