CrossOver: Assessing the role of content recommendation in the spread of disinformation

From December 2021 and for a duration of 15 months, four teams are going to collaborate : an NGO specialising in investigative disinformation campaigns, EUDisinfoLab, a SME that helps journalists, citizens, policy makers and experts connect, organise and debunk fake news, CheckFirst, a small media organization, Apache and a media literacy NGO Savoir*Devenir.

A first phase will consist in analysing the recommendation algorithms. This will imply to define the best means of analysis, and the creation of a dedicated tool. Once this first phase is completed, the process is repeated three times until it leads to an investigation or an upgrade of the existing dashboards. Using these dashboards for monitoring the algorithm of several social media, the team will then investigate disinformation campaigns. Once significant results are found, one goal is to disclose disinformation campaigns by engaging with media to expose malicious actors. This will allow for a response and empowerment of vulnerable audience, that will also be carried by planning and developing sustainable disinformation tackling activities in Belgium. 

The project is expected to deliver tangible results and material. Citizen- and school-children oriented media literacy materials and campaigns will be organised, complemented by journalist and MIL trainer modules and events. Crossover plans to widely disclose findings of the investigations through small and large national and regional media, EDMO, and multiple other dissemination channels. This will be complemented by events, webinars, newsletter, social media campaigns, etc …

All the findings, news and progresses of Crossover will be published on this website.