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A team of social media creators will be dispatched to the digital frontlines with the mission of assisting audiences in spotting and fending off false information.
Five creators from Australia and New Zealand will receive tools from social media platform TikTok and the expert fact-checkers from the Australian Associated Press (AAP) to identify and dispel false material.
In a series of educational but enjoyable TikTok videos, the artists will teach the lessons to their subscribers.
“It’s a really innovative campaign – where expert journalists are linking with expert creators,” a TikTok spokesperson said.
More than 450,000 people have subscribed to Rudy Rigg and Hannah McElhinney’s Rainbow History Class TikTok channel, which offers bite-sized accounts of the LGBTQI community throughout history.
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Rigg said, “When we look at historical recollections of events, we found it can be hard to get to the bottom of things and get to the truth of the matter.”
“We always want to tell the full story and so working with TikTok and AAP on this is such a great alignment,” he added.
Global Media and Literacy Week, which runs from October 24-31, will see the world’s first partnership get underway as a pilot initiative, with content coming from producers with expertise in subjects including LGBTQI history and astrophysics.
According to editor Ben James, collaborating with the makers of TikTok enables AAP FactCheck to spread its understanding of fact-checking to a larger audience.
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James said, “They know their craft, they know their audience, and they’ve cultivated a very loyal following.”
“Having TikTok creators share media literacy messages in their own voice and style helps to get the message across to audiences AAP FactCheck may not have direct access to, and that’s hugely beneficial,” he added.
Trust in news has decreased in 21 of 46 news markets worldwide, including Australia, according to the most recent Reuters Institute Digital Media Report.
The inability to distinguish between online reality and fiction, according to more than half of respondents, was a concern.
James further said, “There is distrust in the mainstream media among some people … but having creators advocating for critical thinking and promoting simple fact-checking skills in their own authentic voices is important.”
Ensuring the message is received can be difficult in the fast-paced TikTok world where it just takes a few seconds to lose a user.
Rigg said, “It’s all about being relatable, it’s about being to the point, and it’s about being honest.”
With AAP. (Content has been tweaked for length and style.)
Jaw de Guzman is the content producer for Comms Room, a knowledge platform and website aimed at assisting the communications industry and its professionals.
