Section 7:
Continuous monitoring
to prevent & address misinformation
interfering with development &
aid/relief efforts, &
government initiatives
This section of my web
site is no longer updated. The last update was in early
2023.
This page is part of a 11-part guide on preventing folklore,
rumors (or rumours), urban myths and organized misinformation
campaigns from interfering with development & aid/relief
efforts, and government initiatives regarding public health, the
environment, etc.
It is not a stand-alone page. It
should be read as part of the entire guide.
This is the link to the introduction
and index for the other pages in this guide.
Continuous monitoring
Your initiative should not wait to hear about misinformation
about your work or your community; you need to be actively seeking
it out. Another section of this guide talked about
training and supporting all
employees and volunteers in being good communicators and in
how to identify misinformation so they can let your office know
about such. All partners and messengers, formal and informal,
should feel empowered to be monitors, to gather and report on
feedback (and that they know exactly how to report observations
about conversations they are seeing/hearing). They should
understand that community conversations happen formally and
informally: on talk radio, at religious-based gatherings, around
dinner tables, while shopping, within text messages, etc.
Monitor and supervise, formally and informally, on an ongoing
basis, communications activities - formal and informal,
face-to-face and online. Look at what is being said on Twitter, on
Facebook, on popular online fora, and in the comments section of
online newspaper articles. What keywords and hashtags do
rumor-mongers and trolls use?
Seek out
misinformation
online and be ready to counter it with your own Internet
activities, via web sites, online discussion groups/bulletin
boards, and email. Good examples of this are
FEMA's
Hurricane Sandy Rumor Control web site in 2012 and its
Hurricane
Irma Rumor Control site in 2017. If someone is circulating a
video, for instance, that represents a falsehood, you need to be
ready to debunk it. Can you prove that people in the video, for
instance, aren't really random members of the public but, rather,
members of a particular group? Is the video really from the
location it says it's from, or can you show that it's not?
Learning about the uploader of the video is a good way to gauge
his/her credibility. What other videos has the uploader
distributed? Are they from the same location? Do they have the
same production quality, or does it look like they were taken by
different people/cameras? Are there other online or social media
accounts linked to that user that can help identify where this
person is based and what sort of media and information he/she
posts? You can also upload any image or screen grab from a video
to the Google image search, and Google will produce the images
online history. You can also copy the video url into the
Amnesty
International YouTube Data Viewer and the site will give you
the videos thumbnail images and a link to a reverse image search
for each one.
If misinformation campaigns can be anticipated, such as before
an election, or if time allows, consider recruiting volunteers
specifically to be trained and ready to identify and report such,
as appropriate. For instance, in anticipation of state assembly
elections, police in Bareilly, Uttar Pradesh (UP), India
started recruiting "digital
volunteers to "keep an eye on and counter 'online
rumour-mongering", to report on and counter 'communally-sensitive
messages and polarization propaganda' that "has potential to
disturb peace in the region." A deputy inspector general of police
said "A riot-like situation takes place at many locations due to
false rumours spread on WhatsApp, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and
other such sites. As UP is gearing for state assembly elections,
scheduled for next year, there are chances that few persons will
try to mislead people for their communal agenda, creating law and
order problem. To thwart their attempts, we need such
initiatives." However, such efforts have to be handled with
extreme care: coordinators of such an initiative could be accused
of creating an effort to censor lawful dissent or initiating an
intimidation campaign against those who don't agree with your
organization or the government.
This April 2023 guidance article, "
Connecting
communities: navigating information gaps and community trust in
post-earthquake Türkiye," from the CDAC Network
(Communicating with Disaster-Affected Communities) offers terrific
advice on how to do this, and notes:
Misinformation, disinformation and rumours spread quickly
during a crisis. Within hours of the earthquake, the
International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies
(IFRC) found conspiracy theories circulating rapidly among
affected communities in Türkiye, particularly on social media
channels. With the current response context affected by the
political and social atmosphere, peoples access to reliable
information from trusted sources may have reduced even further.
It is vital that responders continue to prioritise monitoring
rumours in multiple languages and maintain a continuous cycle of
listening to identify rumours, verifying facts and providing
accurate and accessible information. Monitoring and analysing
how peoples preferred and trusted sources of information change
as the situation evolves, and adapting communication and
engagement strategies accordingly, is crucial.
An earlier article, from CDAC,
Lessons
on communication, community engagement and accountability for
the TürkiyeSyria earthquake response, also provides
excellent examples and tips.
What should you do if you find someone is writing blogs or
producing videos that are critical about your program, or has
written a negative review on a third party site like Yelp? It
depends on so many things. If it's someone else's opinion, and
their online messages aren't getting much attention, the best
course may be to live with that and ignore it, as people are
entitled to their opinions about you and your work, even if you
strongly disagree with it. If the person has gotten facts wrong -
if they say you didn't have an event on a certain date in a
certain place, but you did - you may want to comment on their blog
or social media post and say so. But, again, you may NOT want to
respond at all, especially on your own blog or social media post,
because then you create more publicity for the criticism, shining
a spotlight on something that you really do not want more people
to read. You can see from the two articles from CDAC, as well as
from the examples throughout this section of the Coyotebroad web
site, the consequences for ignoring online rumors. If you have
followed
the earliest advice and
built trust in the communities, you will be able to leverage
that work into getting the counter messaging out effectively.
What about a lawsuit against someone spreading misinformation?
That may be an option in your country, but remember that by doing
so, you are bringing publicity to the critical statements - you
are tying yourself and your organization much more closely to
them. You may even make the person you are suing seem like a
martyr, a David against a Goliath. A better idea to stay positive
in the public's eye in the long run may be to write a rebuttal on
your own blog and move on. Even if you are seeing a drop in event
attendance, a drop in the number of volunteers, or a drop in
donations, and you think it's because people have a growing sense
of negativity about your program or someone associated with such,
"let's sue!" may not be the best strategy. Again, you may end up
giving the critic more attention and create more believers in that
person's narrative.
If you have
built trust with clients, volunteers and donors, you have
an army of people that might love to be a part of videos,
podcasts, blogs and memes celebrating your organization and the
great work it does - and this can be far, far more effective in
countering a negative narrative than a lawsuit.
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