Trusted News Initiative

Last updated
Trusted News Initiative
FormationSeptember 7, 2019;4 years ago (2019-09-07)
Founder and director
Jessica Cecil
Parent organization
 BBC
Website https://www.bbc.co.uk/beyondfakenews/trusted-news-initiative/

The Trusted News Initiative (TNI) is an international alliance of news media, social media and technology corporations which claim to be working to identify and combat purported disinformation about national elections, the COVID-19 pandemic and COVID-19 vaccines. TNI was founded by Jessica Cecil, a leadership figure at the BBC who also serves as the initiative's director. [1] [2]

Contents

History

In June 2019, the BBC convened the Trusted News Summit, bringing together leaders of many of the world's largest news and social media companies. [3] The summit addressed concerns regarding online misinformation surrounding the 2019 Indian general election, which reportedly attracted systematic attempts to spread misinformation and "fake news" through social media. [4] [5] [6] Organizations that participated in the event included the European Broadcasting Union, Facebook, the Financial Times, First Draft News, Google, The Hindu, and the Wall Street Journal. [7]

This led to the launch of a "Trusted News Charter" on September 7, 2019, outlining plans to develop tools to assist industry partners in "moving quickly and collectively to undermine disinformation before it can take hold." [8] Other projects were to include an online media education campaign and disseminating information on how to vote. Additional partner organizations were announced including Agence France-Presse (AFP), CBC/Radio-Canada, Microsoft, Reuters, the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism and Twitter. [7]

COVID-19

On March 27, 2020, the BBC announced that the TNI would extend its efforts to combatting COVID-19 misinformation around the world. [3] [9] [10] It continued to engage in information management related to elections, announcing in July 2020 that it was anticipating misinformation campaigns in advance of the 2020 United States presidential election. [11]

TNI Director Jessica Cecil delivered a presentation on developing a consensus in the "post-pandemic world" at the 2020 Paris Peace Forum. She highlighted the work of the TNI and the related Project Origin, led by Microsoft. [12] At a May 2022 event hosted by the RAND Corporation, Cecil suggested that institutional efforts to counter disinformation should focus on foreign adversaries such as Russia and China, as well as domestic consumers of disinformation. [13]

On August 25, 2022, the Information Commissioner's Office in the United Kingdom ruled that communications between the BBC and members of the TNI were not subject to public disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act 2000. [14]

The TNI announced its expansion into the Asia-Pacific region in November 2022, providing new partners from the area with training in navigating disinformation with funding from the Google News Initiative. [15] [16]

In January 2023, a group of plaintiffs including Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Children's Health Defense filed an antitrust lawsuit in a Texas district court against various members of the TNI. [17] [18] The suit alleges that the defendants colluded to censor individuals and news outlets whose reporting on COVID-19 challenged or competed with the TNI. [19] Additional plaintiffs included various members of the "Disinformation Dozen", a list created by the Center for Countering Digital Hate of the "top 12 spreaders of anti-vaccine misinformation on social media platforms." [20]

Trust in News conferences

On March 22-24, 2021, the Trusted News Initiative and BBC Academy co-hosted the inaugural Trust in News conference. [21] Held entirely online, TIN21 featured webinars on "how to tackle disinformation" led by representatives of TNI members. [22]

The second conference was held on March 29-30, 2022, titled "Trust in News 2022: Fighting disinformation." [23] Topics at TNI22 included the February 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, nationalization of the internet, climate change, artificial intelligence (AI), and the role of Big Tech in "tackling disinformation." [23]

Trust in News 2023 took place on March 30, 2023, live streamed out of London and Delhi. [24]

Participants

Members of the Trusted News Initiative include: [22]

Related Research Articles

Disinformation is false information deliberately spread to deceive people. Disinformation is an orchestrated adversarial activity in which actors employ strategic deceptions and media manipulation tactics to advance political, military, or commercial goals. Disinformation is implemented through attacks that "weaponize multiple rhetorical strategies and forms of knowing—including not only falsehoods but also truths, half-truths, and value judgements—to exploit and amplify culture wars and other identity-driven controversies."

<i>The Epoch Times</i> Far-right media company affiliated with Falun Gong

The Epoch Times is a far-right international multi-language newspaper and media company affiliated with the Falun Gong new religious movement. The newspaper, based in New York City, is part of the Epoch Media Group, which also operates New Tang Dynasty (NTD) Television. The Epoch Times has websites in 35 countries but is blocked in mainland China.

Misinformation is incorrect or misleading information. It differs from disinformation, which is deliberately deceptive and propagated information. Early definitions of misinformation focused on statements that were patently false, incorrect, or not factual. Therefore, a narrow definition of misinformation refers to the information's quality, whether inaccurate, incomplete, or false. However, recent studies define misinformation per deception rather than informational accuracy because misinformation can include falsehoods, selective truths, and half-truths.

The Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH), formerly Brixton Endeavors, is a British not-for-profit NGO company with offices in London and Washington, D.C. with the stated purpose of stopping the spread of online hate speech and disinformation. It campaigns to deplatform people that it believes promote hate or misinformation, and campaigns to restrict media organisations such as The Daily Wire from advertising. CCDH is a member of the Stop Hate For Profit coalition.

<i>LifeSiteNews</i> Far-right, anti-abortion advocacy and news publication

LifeSiteNews is a Canadian Catholic conservative anti-abortion advocacy website and news publication. LifeSiteNews has published misleading information and conspiracy theories, and in 2021, was banned from some social media platforms for spreading COVID-19 misinformation.

China Global Television Network (CGTN) is one of three branches of state-run China Media Group and the international division of China Central Television (CCTV). Headquartered in Beijing, CGTN broadcasts news in multiple languages. CGTN is under the control of the Central Propaganda Department of the Chinese Communist Party.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fake news</span> False or misleading information presented as real

Fake news or information disorder is false or misleading information presented as news. Fake news often has the aim of damaging the reputation of a person or entity, or making money through advertising revenue. Although false news has always been spread throughout history, the term fake news was first used in the 1890s when sensational reports in newspapers were common. Nevertheless, the term does not have a fixed definition and has been applied broadly to any type of false information presented as news. It has also been used by high-profile people to apply to any news unfavorable to them. Further, disinformation involves spreading false information with harmful intent and is sometimes generated and propagated by hostile foreign actors, particularly during elections. In some definitions, fake news includes satirical articles misinterpreted as genuine, and articles that employ sensationalist or clickbait headlines that are not supported in the text. Because of this diversity of types of false news, researchers are beginning to favour information disorder as a more neutral and informative term.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Full Fact</span> Fact-checking organisation

Full Fact is a British charity, based in London, which checks and corrects facts reported in the news as well as claims which circulate on social media.

First Draft News was a project "to fight mis- and disinformation online" founded in 2015 by nine organizations brought together by the Google News Lab. It included Facebook, Twitter, the Open Society Foundations and several philanthropic organizations. In June 2022, First Draft announced it would be shutting down, with its mission continuing at the Information Futures Lab.

Fake news in India refers to fostering and spread of false information in the country which is spread through word of mouth, traditional media and more recently through digital forms of communication such as edited videos, websites, blogs, memes, unverified advertisements and social media propagated rumours. Fake news spread through social media in the country has become a serious problem, with the potential of it resulting in mob violence, as was the case where at least 20 people were killed in 2018 as a result of misinformation circulated on social media.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">COVID-19 misinformation</span> False or misleading virus information

False information, including intentional disinformation and conspiracy theories, about the scale of the COVID-19 pandemic and the origin, prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of the disease has been spread through social media, text messaging, and mass media. False information has been propagated by celebrities, politicians, and other prominent public figures. Many countries have passed laws against "fake news", and thousands of people have been arrested for spreading COVID-19 misinformation. The spread of COVID-19 misinformation by governments has also been significant.

Disinformation attacks are strategic deception campaigns involving media manipulation and internet manipulation, to disseminate misleading information, aiming to confuse, paralyze, and polarize an audience. Disinformation can be considered an attack when it occurs as an adversarial narrative campaign that weaponizes multiple rhetorical strategies and forms of knowing—including not only falsehoods but also truths, half-truths, and value-laden judgements—to exploit and amplify identity-driven controversies. Disinformation attacks use media manipulation to target broadcast media like state-sponsored TV channels and radios. Due to the increasing use of internet manipulation on social media, they can be considered a cyber threat. Digital tools such as bots, algorithms, and AI technology, along with human agents including influencers, spread and amplify disinformation to micro-target populations on online platforms like Instagram, Twitter, Google, Facebook, and YouTube.

The Chinese government has actively engaged in disinformation to downplay the emergence of COVID-19 in China and manipulate information about its spread around the world. The government also detained whistleblowers and journalists claiming they were spreading rumors when they were publicly raising concerns about people being hospitalized for a "mysterious illness" resembling SARS.

Logically is a British multinational technology startup company that specializes in analyzing and fighting disinformation. Logically was founded in 2017 by Lyric Jain and is based in Brighouse, England, with offices in London, Mysore, Bangalore, and Virginia.

This timeline includes entries on the spread of COVID-19 misinformation and conspiracy theories related to the COVID-19 pandemic in Canada. This includes investigations into the origin of COVID-19, and the prevention and treatment of COVID-19 which is caused by the virus SARS-CoV-2. Social media apps and platforms, including Facebook, TikTok, Telegram, and YouTube, have contributed to the spread of misinformation. The Canadian Anti-Hate Network (CAHN) reported that conspiracy theories related to COVID-19 began on "day one". CAHN reported on March 16, 2020, that far-right groups in Canada were taking advantage of the climate of anxiety and fear surrounding COVID, to recycle variations of conspiracies from the 1990s, that people had shared over shortwave radio. COVID-19 disinformation is intentional and seeks to create uncertainty and confusion. But most of the misinformation is shared online unintentionally by enthusiastic participants who are politically active.

The Content Authenticity Initiative (CAI) is an association founded in November 2019 by Adobe, the New York Times and Twitter. The CAI promotes an industry standard for provenance metadata defined by the C2PA. The CAI cites curbing disinformation as one motivation for its activities.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">The Disinformation Project</span> Misinformation research group in New Zealand

The Disinformation Project is a research group studying the effects of disinformation in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic in New Zealand.

Graphika is an American social network analysis company known for tracking online disinformation. It was established in 2013.

References

  1. ↑ "Jessica Cecil". Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism . Archived from the original on 2023-09-26. Retrieved 2023-10-15.
  2. ↑ "Meet the Speaker: Jessica Cecil, BBC". BritishAmerican Business. Archived from the original on 2023-10-15. Retrieved 2023-10-15.
  3. 1 2 "Trusted News Initiative announces plans to tackle harmful Coronavirus disinformation". BBC . 2020-03-27. Archived from the original on 2023-10-15. Retrieved 2023-10-15.
  4. ↑ Purnell, Newley (2019-04-01). "Facebook Removes Hundreds of Fake Accounts Ahead of India Elections". The Wall Street Journal . ISSN   0099-9660. Archived from the original on 2019-04-02. Retrieved 2023-10-15.
  5. ↑ Goel, Vindu; Frenkel, Sheera (2019-04-01). "In India Election, False Posts and Hate Speech Flummox Facebook". The New York Times . ISSN   0362-4331. Archived from the original on 2019-04-02. Retrieved 2023-10-15.
  6. ↑ Das, Anupam; Schroeder, Ralph (2021-09-10). "Online disinformation in the run-up to the Indian 2019 election". Information, Communication & Society . 24 (12): 1762–1778. doi:10.1080/1369118X.2020.1736123. ISSN   1369-118X. S2CID   216356456.
  7. 1 2 "New collaboration steps up fight against disinformation". BBC . 2019-09-07. Archived from the original on 2023-10-15. Retrieved 2023-10-15.
  8. ↑ Mar, Leon (2019-09-07). "CBC/Radio-Canada joins global charter to fight disinformation". CBC/Radio-Canada . Archived from the original on 2023-08-11. Retrieved 2023-10-15.
  9. ↑ Fenlon, Brodie (2020-05-25). "Canada not immune to the virus of COVID-19 conspiracies". CBC News . Archived from the original on 2023-10-11.
  10. ↑ Mar, Leon (2020-03-27). "Trusted News Initiative announces plans to tackle harmful coronavirus disinformation". CBC/Radio-Canada . Archived from the original on 2022-01-27. Retrieved 2023-10-16.
  11. ↑ Ramachandran, Naman (2020-07-13). "Early Warning System Set Up to Combat Fake News During U.S. Presidential Election". Variety . Archived from the original on 2020-08-02. Retrieved 2023-10-15.
  12. ↑ Cecil, Jessica. "A new consensus for the post-Covid19 world: Disinformation". Paris Peace Forum . Archived from the original on 2022-05-30.
  13. ↑ "Combating Disinformation by Bolstering Truth and Trust". RAND Corporation . 2022-05-24. Archived from the original on 2023-10-17.
  14. ↑ Churchill, Claire (2022-08-25). "Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA) Decision notice – IC-185687-C4J8" (PDF). Information Commissioner's Office . Archived (PDF) from the original on 2023-10-17.
  15. ↑ Mar, Leon (2022-11-09). "Trusted News Initiative creates Asia-Pacific network". CBC/Radio-Canada . Archived from the original on 2023-10-17. Retrieved 2023-10-17.
  16. ↑ Jackson, Sally (2022-11-15). "ABC joins the Trusted News Initiative". Australian Broadcasting Corporation . Archived from the original on 2023-01-26. Retrieved 2023-10-17.
  17. ↑ Porterfield, Carlie (2023-01-13). "RFK Jr. Sues BBC And Other Media Outlets Over Covid 'Censorship'". Forbes . Archived from the original on 2023-07-06. Retrieved 2023-10-17.
  18. ↑ Rawnsley, Adam (2023-01-12). "Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and His League of Extraordinary Anti-Vaxxers Sue Media Outlets Over Conspiracy 'Boycott'". Rolling Stone . Archived from the original on 2023-07-05. Retrieved 2023-10-17.
  19. ↑ "Robert F. Kennedy Jr sues media outlets over misinformation initiative". France 24 . Agence France-Presse. 2023-01-13. Archived from the original on 2023-10-17. Retrieved 2023-10-17.
  20. ↑ Jarry, Jonathan (2021-03-31). "A Dozen Misguided Influencers Spread Most of the Anti-Vaccination Content on Social Media". Office for Science and Society . Archived from the original on 2022-07-01. Retrieved 2021-07-18.
  21. ↑ "AFP in full force at Trust in News conference (22nd-24th March)". Agence France-Press . 2021-03-15. Archived from the original on 2023-02-05. Retrieved 2024-04-20.
  22. 1 2 "Trusted News Initiative". BBC . Archived from the original on 2023-09-23. Retrieved 2023-10-16.
  23. 1 2 "Welcome to Trust in News: 29-30 March 2022". BBC . Archived from the original on 2022-03-08. Retrieved 2024-04-20.
  24. ↑ "Welcome to Trust in News 2023". BBC . Archived from the original on 2023-03-15. Retrieved 2024-04-20.
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