How to Survive a Russian Hack

The coronavirus pandemic has invigorated organizations working in the Baltics to counter disinformation, particularly from Russia, by flagging suspicious accounts, fake news, and hate speech. For example, Covid-19 led hundreds of Lithuanian medics to a group called the Elves to flag disinformation about the virus and related government responses. The groups partner with and receive funding from local and international sources, including Facebook and the Google News Innovation Fund. Some question whether highlighting stories, websites, and user accounts as fake might actually help to disseminate them further.

Building successful resistance to fake information begins with primary education. Finland’s national school curriculum encourages information and media literacy along with critical thinking. The pilot program consists of training teachers, journalists, civil servants, and others in information literacy. The curriculum emphasizes three categories of fake news: misinformation (mistakes), disinformation (lies), and malformation (conspiracies).

Allowing news consumers to more carefully vet media outlets can help stem the proliferation of fake news. NewsGuard, a web browser plug-in gives users a “nutrition label” for news websites by ranking them on a scale of trustworthiness. The service employs trained journalists and is working to make its plug-in available in libraries, as well.

Teaching students to fact check encourages resilience and builds resistance to the post-truth phenomenon. In Finland, a school curriculum implemented at the national level equips elementary and high school students with a digital literacy toolkit geared toward recognizing disinformation online. In addition to specific exercises spotting fake news on social media platforms, a critical thinking curriculum is built into all subjects. Finland's success in fostering a social resilience against disinformation also draws on lessons from the country's oftentimes fraught history with its eastern neighbor.

France is at the forefront of efforts to integrate internet literacy into standard primary and secondary course requirements. By partnering with journalists and educators, the French government is working to stop the spread of misinformation by teaching students how to identify misleading tweets, articles, and other sources.

Crown Agents is an international development organization working to get people vaccinated against COVID-19, despite vaccine shortages and misinformation from anti-vaxxers.

In an effort to fight misinformation and vaccine hesitancy, teams of healthcare professionals travel door-to-door in rural communities where vaccination rates are low and COVID cases are high.

A growing Generation Z movement is pushing back against social media companies and the pervasiveness of technology in young people’s lives, which can negatively impact mental health. LookUp is one organization that funds young people working to increase digital wellbeing. Funded initiatives include a youth summit that drew 1,200 people, apps that help people manage their social media usage and identify the connections to their wellbeing, and NoSo November, which urges young people to log off or delete all social media apps for the month of November as a group experience rather than an isolating one.

Step Up Nigeria’s "Catch Them Young Initiative" uses children’s storybooks and animated films to teach school children how to become anti-corruption ambassadors. The books, which have recently been adapted to animated films, address the dangers of corrupt practices like vote-buying and bribery. The organization not only distributes the books and films, but also trains teachers to give the lessons. Over 250 teachers have been trained and at least 20,000 children have received anti-corruption education materials.

The German government opened an office, known as Zebra (“not everything is black and white”) to help people dispel misinformation and conspiracy theories. Most clients are seeking help with loved ones who believe in conspiracy theories, misinformation, or are becoming radicalized. Clients receive in-person phone or video appointments with a neutral staff person, who helps them defuse conflicts, find commonalities, and address mental health issues. After the COVID-19 pandemic began much of the program’s work has been aimed at dispelling misinformation about the government’s response and the vaccine.