Disinformation specialists warn of sophisticated techniques used to spread mistruths

Disinformation experts have warned journalists that more sophisticated techniques are being used to spread deliberate mistruths online. Kate Levan, a specialist from the Wikimedia Foundation, said the importance of ‘better sharing’ of knowledge is vital to tackle the growing threat. The online briefing was the second in an Open Journalism webinar series, 'Ground Truth in Open Internet', which was developed by Creative Commons in partnership with Google News Initiative and will continue to run until March.
 
The series was designed after a survey of over 500 journalists from 18 countries which aimed to better understand journalists' needs during this turbulent time as digital news rapidly changes. Four further sessions are due to be held in the coming weeks and will include discussions on Creative Commons licences, and how they increase information-sharing in global journalism and combat disinformation.

There will also be a free training course for journalists on the basics of copyright. During the disinformation and misinformation session, Ms Levan highlighted an example of how disinformation was spread during Joe Biden's US election campaign through subtle tweaks on Wikipedia. These were then used to mislead journalists and the public on another platform. Ms Levan told the audience how a user impersonated a leading member of Biden's campaign staff by using their Wikipedia account name as his name, and went on to edit the Wikipedia page for Senator Tammy Duckworth.

She said: "The interesting thing about this case was that they didn't actually insert any false information in Wikipedia, they just did small grammatical edits. "But then what they did is they screen-shotted this and created a Twitter account to tweet about this member of Joe Biden's campaign staff editing Wikipedia. "And they claimed this must mean Senator Duckworth was a serious candidate for Vice President, which was not the case at the time."

She added: "It was an interesting case for us because it completely flew under the radar because they didn't vandalise the page or do anything that would have been picked up, and the actual disinformation took place on a different platform. We found out because Joe Biden's campaign staff got in touch with us and told us about the problem and we blocked the account for impersonation."

Levan said the concept of “free knowledge”, which is free from social, legal and technological restrictions, and from bias or influence by powerful groups, is one of the reasons the WMF uses Creative Commons licensing because it ensures content is free and can be distributed widely.

And she said Wikimedia uses a unique community-led approach to understanding and addressing misinformation and disinformation on Wikipedia, and offers training sessions and resources to its community around election times to help identify disinformation, as well as launching investigations and banning users for egregious behaviours. Creative Commons is an international non-profit organisation dedicated to helping build and sustain a thriving 'commons' of shared knowledge and culture.

The organization built and now stewards CC licences, applied to over 2 billion works across 9 million websites around the world. For the last 20 years, Creative Commons has worked towards developing solutions and advocating for better open sharing of knowledge and culture that serves the public interest. Since journalism provides a crucial public service, access to verifiable information and stories that question the underlying terrain of power is critical to democratic societies.

For more information click here or register to attend a session. 
 
Creative Commons is an international non-profit organization dedicated to helping build and sustain a thriving commons of shared knowledge and culture. Together with an extensive member network and multiple partners, CC builds capacity, develops practical solutions, and advocates for better open sharing of knowledge and culture that serves the public interest.

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