With a General Election likely to take place in the near future, now is a great time for a reminder about how to recognise accurate and reliable information and avoid potential mis– and disinformation.
Below are some helpful resources to guide you in the run-up to the election:
- The Electoral Commission – an independent body that oversees elections in Ireland. Its website provides information around the voting process. In April 2024 it published the Framework on Online Electoral Process Information, Political Advertising and Deceptive AI Content.
- Be Media Smart campaign – an initiative of MLI that encouraged people to Stop, Think and Check that the information they are getting, from whatever source, is accurate and reliable.
- Be Election Smart campaign – an initiative of EDMO (European Digital Media Observatory) to support citizens in finding reliable election information and recognising false or manipulative content ahead of the 2024 European Parliament Elections. The information is also relevant for the General Election.
- Election Check 24 – supported by the Google News Initiative, this is a coalition of news publishers and fact-checkers brought together by PA Media, Ireland’s national news agency, to counter misinformation around Ireland’s General Election.
- FactCheck – created by TheJournal.ie to provide information and tools for citizens to become their own fact-checkers. They have a specific page on how to navigate elections.
- Which Candidate – an initiative of the University of Limerick that provides information on all the local and national election candidates.
- ADAPT – the world-leading SFI Research Centre for AI-Driven Digital Content Technology, co-ordinated by Trinity College Dublin and co-hosted by Dublin City University – has created a short podcast on Combating Deep Fakes in Elections
