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A groundbreaking collaboration has been made between the Judith Nielson Institute for Journalism and Ideas (JNI) and RMIT FactLab, creating a cutting edge disinformation detection and tracking software for the federal election campaign.
The Mosaic Project, which will utilise the advanced digital analysis techniques pioneered by the Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD), will be used to track, trace and debunk disinformation campaigns targeting voters.
As part of the collaboration, RMIT FactLab will publish debunked disinformation and misinformation for the benefit of voters and newsrooms around the country.
“The sheer volume of information available to voters online means journalists with limited resources and time have no hope of catching every bad actor’s Tweet, Facebook comment or Reddit post,” JNI’s Executive Director Mark Ryan said.
“A significant aim of this project is to focus newsrooms on fast-spreading falsehoods to cut them down before they can influence the federal election outcome. It is designed to bring new skills and technology and additional resources to newsrooms stretched covering the biggest news event of 2022.”
RMIT FactLab will use the ISD’s state-of-the-art data analytics and open-source intelligence techniques to monitor Australian MPs and other political actors from Australia and overseas, extremist groups, and others to identify the viral spread of online disinformation and manipulation that has the potential to disrupt the election in ‘real time’.
Once a disinformation campaign or item is identified, understood to be gaining traction on social media, and debunked, RMIT FactLab will publish the results in the CheckMate newsletter (formerly CoronaCheck), as well as to open-sourced digital platforms.
RMIT FactLab Director Russell Skelton said that with Australians receiving their news from social media, exposing false and misleading information during an election campaign was essential for a healthy democracy.
“We have seen the harm caused when misinformation spreads unchecked on social media. We saw it in the US storming of Congress by fanatical groups, and we saw it during the German elections,” he said.
“Exposing disinformation on social media is the new frontier in election coverage. Arming voters with the facts can lessen the impact of scare campaigns.”
Meanwhile, ISD’s Head of Digital Integrity Jiore Craig said the project will help tackle online threats to the democratic process in Australia.
“Misinformation, hate speech, and deception online put voters’ right to engage in a free and fair election at risk. It is critical for democracy in 2022 that voters are able to access robust and trustworthy information when informing their choice on election day,” he said.
RMIT FactLab’s participation in JNI’s Mosaic Project follows the announcement in March that it has partnered with Meta, the Facebook and Instagram parent company, to fight the spread of misinformation through independent, third-party fact-checking.
This article was first published on Public Spectrum
Eliza Sayon is an experienced writer who specialises in corporate and government communications. She is the content producer for Public Spectrum, an online knowledge-based platform for and about the Australian public sector.
