Meet the influencers who are fighting the spread of online conspiracy theories

To combat the spread of mis- and disinformation online, Singapore passed the Protection from Online Falsehoods and Manipulation Act, which allows the government to order that corrections be added to posts containing false information or even block access to certain content. So far, 152 orders have been issued under the act, with most of the flagged content relating to public health, public order, or trust in government functions.

To combat mis- and disinformation, Nigerian startup FactCheck Elections monitors voting results and verifies claims made during political debates and then distributes vetted information via articles, infographics, visual media, and social media. The organization has published more than 100 fact-checks so far.

Governments, companies, and nonprofits are using a strategy called "pre-bunking" to teach people the tactics and strategies behind misinformation so that they can recognize and scrutinize it when they see it online. After Twitter released several dozen pre-bunks about elections in the United States and Brazil, about 39 percent of users they surveyed said they were more confident that there wouldn't be election fraud, and about half said they were able to pause and question what they saw in online posts.

Logically is a fact-checking app that combines AI technology and human research to assess and label the truthfulness of news articles. The app has about 20,000 users after a soft launch in the UK, with a full launch planned for late 2020. The AI technology, a feature that makes the app unique, tries to match news claims to other sources and then human researchers take over to make a final judgment. The app has been busy fact-checking the extensive Covid-19 related misinformation. Some aspects, like technology glitches and slow fact-checking responses from researchers, still need to be worked out.

Many entities are working with social media companies to flag election-related disinformation. The California Secretary of State emails voters about how to report false information so the state can flag it and the Arizona Secretary of State verifies official accounts with social media companies. In the private sector, the startup VineSite uses artificial intelligence to identify and flag false information and the nonprofit Mitre has an app used by 160 election officials to report social media disinformation. Officials have a good relationship with social media companies, but there is room for improvement.

To combat election-related mis- and disinformation, a Google initiative called Jigsaw launched campaigns in Indonesia and Eastern Europe with videos “inoculating” viewers against false information by explaining common manipulation techniques that could be used to mislead them. Surveys showed that people who viewed the videos were up to 5 percent more likely to correctly identify attempts at manipulation.

Following a fraudulent election and violent backlash against demonstrators, activists in Belarus used open source photographs and documents, as well as those submitted by journalists and citizens, to expose police and state actors participating in human rights violations via a secure Telegram channel.

Ahead of Nigeria’s general election, a group of 12 media platforms and civil society organizations worked together as the Nigeria Factcheckers Coalition to debunk false information targeting voters. The coalition, which provided training and tools to participating journalists, fact-checked 127 during the week of the elections.

To “inoculate” internet users against fake news, a collaboration between Google and YouTube played ads before videos explaining misinformation concepts such as scapegoating and false dichotomies. A study of 20,000 people who interacted with the ads found that those who viewed them were better able to spot manipulation tactics online.

The Election Registration Information Center allows states to check for duplicate voter registrations across state lines and identify voters who have moved or died. At one time, a total of 33 states participated in the database, but several have since left the partnership as a result of disinformation about how the effort is funded.