UOL participates in a project to investigate fraudulent information during elections – News

O UOL is one of Comprova's participants, a project consisting of 24 Brazilian media companies that, starting in August, will investigate and explain rumors, falsified content and manipulation tactics badociated with Brazil's presidential elections. 2018.

The initiative is coordinated by Abraji (Brazilian Association of Investigative Journalism), the support of Projor (Institute for Journalism Development) and the training and technical support of the Google News Initiative and the Facebook Journalism Project, which contribute to financing. The professional control group of 24 Brazilian media companies is part of the group that will be continuously trained on how to combat misinformation and sophisticated techniques of amplification and manipulation. The results of this work will begin to be published on the website www.projectcomprova.com.br August 6, 2018.

The inspiration for Proof comes from other First Draft projects, an initiative of the Shorenstein Center of the John F. Kennedy School of Management for Media, Politics and Public Policy of the University. Harvard. Among them, partnerships with news agencies to verify information during the British, German and French elections (in the latter country, the award-winning initiative called CrossCheck) – all referring to the election campaigns of 2017 .

"UOL was one of the first vehicles to engage in the implementation of the project in Brazil, because it understands that false news and misinformation represent a real risk to democracy," says Rodrigo Flores. , content director of UOL.

"Journalists increasingly need to monitor and verify the content of social networks." Today, the public wants journalists to take stock of this, but it does not make any sense whatsoever. having multiple vehicles checking the same video posted on Twitter. Said Claire Wardle, international director of First Draft.

The phenomenon of false news has taken on new proportions in the 2016 North American elections. On the occasion, false content was published that favored the candidacy of Republican Donald Trump, now president of the United States. In these publications, there were lies that disqualified the opponent, Democrat Hillary Clinton, as well as complimentary information about the billionaire.

In Brazil, recent research conducted by the INCT (Institute for Democracy and Democratization of Communication) shows that the majority of Brazilian voters do not realize that they are receiving false new policies.

How the project works

Since the beginning of the year, the media coalition has been working on developing the workflow and setting its guidelines. There will be no central writing, and the audit will be the result of the collective work of professionals from different vehicles. Also in partnership, they will create visual pieces – shareable images, animated GIFs and short videos – to disseminate verified information.

No refusal of the invoice will be published until at least three vehicles agree on the falsity of the information. In addition, only news that already has viral or large potential will be verified – this prevents a rumor of a rumor still weak.

In addition to publishing on the Comprova website, partners will use their own channels to disseminate the information they have collected. The official website focuses on mobile technology and accessibility, from design to priority to visual content. Five weeks before the start of the site, the team will work to engage the public and consolidate its presence in social media and WhatsApp. The project was also designed to encourage the continuation of collaborative research after the 2018 elections.

Asked about the challenges of implementing the project in Brazil, Claire Wardle rightly mentioned the collaboration. "The difficulty of doing a collaborative project is that newsrooms are very competitive, vehicles have to publish together, and it's a challenge because newsrooms like to be first.

There is an educational component of Comprova, according to Claire. This is because each report will explain how we came to the conclusion presented and show how people can use the same tools and techniques to verify the information.

This partnership with the public is evident with the use of a WhatsApp account, with which the evidence will receive rumors about the presidential elections. In another account of the application, Business version, the initiative will send the correct information, encouraging the public to share the correct data with their contacts.

Institutional partners of the initiative are ANJ (National Association of Newspapers), RBMDF Associates, Harvard University Brazil Office, Projor, Torabit, Ideal H + K Strategies and Twitter.