In recent years, hate speech has thrived largely thanks to its dissemination through fake news. Almost half of EU citizens (46% in 2016) inform themselves through social media, and six out of ten tend to share this news without having read them before or checked their veracity. Groups such as that of women at risk of exclusion are especially susceptible to this fake news, being an adult population over 55 years old in situations of exclusion and with low digital skills. This is a group historically relegated from the public and educational spheres, and therefore has lower digital skills and less training for the use of social networks and the internet. Since 2020, due to the impact of coronavirus, the use of new technologies and social networks as a window to the world has increased. The massive use of digitalization as a passive mechanism for searching for information has enabled for a higher, if possible, spread of fake news. Since the incidence of fake news is a main concern of the European Parliament, we designed this initiative, the project “DISMANTLING FAKE NEWS TO STOP HATRED: EDUCATION FOR THE INCLUSION OF ADULT WOMEN AT RISK OF EXCLUSION”, to promote the inclusion of women at risk of exclusion in the adult education system through innovative tools, adapted to this group of beneficiaries, and based on the analysis of fake news. During its 36 months, we developed a strategy to fight against these fake news by training adult women through a dynamic and appealing process capable of enhancing their critical thinking capabilities. The main objective was to generate in them mechanisms to fight against hate speech through a series of effective tools to promote their training, the development of their digital skills, and a capability for critical analysis that reduces their digital gap. This objective matches the will of the European Commission to establish specific measures against disinformation to counter any campaign of disinformation (fake news), both inside and outside Europe. The project has also effectively contributed to the 2030 Agenda and the following four common EU objectives: ‒ Making lifelong learning a reality. ‒ Improving the quality and effectiveness of education and training. ‒ Promoting equality, social cohesion, and active citizenship. ‒ Increasing creativity and innovation, including entrepreneurship, in adults. By fulfilling the objectives of this project, our partnership has worked directly to stop hate speech at the European level by carrying out multiple coordinated activities in the different phases of the project, during which we successfully carried out the following activities: ‒ For the development of tangible materials and results. ‒ For the management, coordination, evaluation, and control of the project. ‒ In which women at risk of exclusion participated in the evaluation processes and the creation of the results themselves. ‒ Specific for the creation of materials. ‒ For the creation of the PROJECT’S WEBSITE. ‒ For the visibility of the European network and the Erasmus+ Programme. ‒ Aimed at the creation and evaluation of the READ-THINK-ACT. ‒ For the final evaluation of the project, as a basis for the sustainability of the network. ‒ With multipliers, in order to implement the results. ‒ For the dissemination and visibility for the presentation of results. ‒ 4 Transnational Meetings. ‒ Large Multiplier Events. Thanks to all of this, we developed the main Intellectual Output of this project, the digital platform READ-THINK-ACT (O1), an interactive educational platform for adult learning through the analysis of fake news, aimed especially at groups at risk of exclusion, in this case adult women with obstacles. The platform generates a virtual learning process so that users interact by analyzing fake news to enhance their detection and participatory debate, learning in a way adapted to their needs through an innovative, highly motivational methodology that develops their civic, social, digital, and critical analysis competences. The platform also stands out for having more than 12 didactic units, tests, resources… that support the dynamic learning from the REAd-REAct section. In addition to the main Intellectual Output, non-tangible results have been generated, like the exchange of experiences, which improve the networking of the entities, along with tangible results, such as innovative digital tools, materials developed through cloud-sharing applications, and effective Nonetheless, the project does not end here, as this partnership will continue working on the sustainability stage to promote the inclusion of women at risk of exclusion in the adult education system and fight against fake news, thus expanding and extending this experience.
Since the incidence of fake news is a common concern of the European Parliament, we designed an initiative that promotes the inclusion of women at risk of exclusion in the adult education system through innovative tools, adapted to this group of beneficiaries, and based on the analysis of fake news. The objective was to generate in them mechanisms to fight against hate speech through a series of effective tools to promote their training, the development of their digital skills, and a capability for critical analysis that reduces their digital gap. This objective matches the will of the European Commission to establish specific measures against disinformation to counter any campaign of disinformation (fake news), both inside and outside Europe. The project has also effectively contributed to the 2030 Agenda and the following four common EU objectives: ‒ Making lifelong learning a reality. ‒ Improving the quality and effectiveness of education and training. ‒ Promoting equality, social cohesion, and active citizenship. ‒ Increasing creativity and innovation, including entrepreneurship, in adults.
In recent years, hate speech has thrived largely thanks to its dissemination through fake news. Almost half of EU citizens (46% in 2016) inform themselves through social media, and six out of ten tend to share this news without having read them before or checked their veracity. Groups such as that of women at risk of exclusion are especially susceptible to this fake news, being an adult population over 55 years old in situations of exclusion and with low digital skills. This is a group historically relegated from the public and educational spheres, and therefore has lower digital skills and less training for the use of social networks and the internet. Since 2020, due to the impact of coronavirus, the use of new technologies and social networks as a window to the world has increased. This massive use of digitalization as a passive mechanism for searching for information has enabled for a higher, if possible, spread of fake news. This initiative has, for 36 months, developed a strategy to fight against these fake news by training adult women through a dynamic and appealing process capable of enhancing their critical thinking capabilities.