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Liars and Verifiers

2021-1-CZ01-KA153-YOU-0000091002021Mobility of youth workersfinalized
Countries: CZ|GE|DE|TR|AM|UA · Grant: €13,259.64
Media literacy and tackling disinformationDigital safetyDigital skills and competences

Objectives

Fake News and Disinformation Campaigns are a pressing issue in many European countries. They are used to influence or divide societies, to fuel anger, to win elections, slandering public figures or whole parts of a society. During the “COVID19-Crisis” many Fake News regarding the Covid19 Virus evolved. Fake News are dangerous for two reasons: firstly, they undermine safety measures and increase the risk of mass infection and thus, more fatalities; secondly, they actively contribute to divide and endanger democratic societies. Thus, they expose a real threat to social peace and democracy. Although social media and many apps are a tool for the democratisation of communication and the exchange and the generation of information, they also serve as a tool for spreading disinformation and fake news. The “EU Code on Practice of Disinformation” aims to mitigate the outcomes of fake news and increase transparency. Social networks and companies such as Facebook, Twitter, Mozilla, Google, members of the advertising industry, Microsoft and TikTok belong to signatories of this code. However, this doesn’t solve the problem for good. We as youth workers wanted to contribute to this. Many young people of our target group are “digital natives” and use apps several hours a day as means of communication, information and entertainment. Thus, they can be an easy prey for Fake News. Hence, we as youth workers aimed to respond to that by being prepared to integrate this topic into our youth work and increase the media literacy of young people. We decided to focus on objectives that are easy to measure and set them out as follows: 1. Kick-start a learning process of the participants regarding Media Literacy and Fake News 2. Exchange of best-practice from youth work regarding Media Literacy and Fake News 3. Exchange of best-practice regarding inclusion and diversity and the concrete involvement of young people with fewer opportunities into youth work 4. Implement workshops in the local context of each participating organisation (one of them peer-sharing with other organisations/youth workers) 5. Create a Toolkit for Youth Workers and Trainers about Media Literacy and Fake News and make it available online for sustainable use 6. Strengthen the Network of youth associations against Fake News To achieve these objectives we implemented a Professional Development Activity (PDA) in Rustavi/Georgia for youth workers who are actively involved at all participating organisations and conduct youth work on local and international level.

Project partners (6)