First Draft launches the CrossCheck website

Hello Everyone,

This has been a busier week than normal at First Draft, as we’ve launched the CrossCheck website and co-hosted MisinfoCon.

The CrossCheck website is now live, reporting on information and social media posts that are suspicious or need clarification around the upcoming French Presidential election. CrossCheck reporters and editors have so far debunked 12 stories, the most notable a site masquerading as the website of the Belgian newspaper, Le Soir. The hoax site published a false article on the Saudi Arabian government financing the campaign of a candidate for the French presidency, Emmanuel Macron. The debunk to this story is in French and English. Sam Dubberley, who is managing the reporting and editing teams, said he’s been surprised at the intensity of this project — coordinating 35 different news organizations and creating new collaborative workflows is complex — but “the pure enthusiasm for getting this going has been ‘incroyable,’” he said.

First Draft co-hosted MisinfoCon at MIT Media Lab this past weekend. The event was a two-day sprint that hatched ideas to solve misinformation. Here’s an overview of the weekend events and our take on what it was like to work on a group project.

In all, 20 projects emerged from MisinfoCon. It’s too soon to tell if any of these ideas will be the breakthrough to upend misinformation, but it’s heartening to know that so many people are engaged in trying.

A shout out to co-hosts Nieman Foundation and Hacks/Hackers, and to organizers Jeanne Brooks and Phillip Smith who made running such a complex event appear effortless (when it was clearly anything but).

We’re excited to announce that we’re supporting new research that will investigate the misinformation ecosystem across Europe based on the technological Infrastructure of “fake news” sites.

“A Field Guide to Fake News,” led by Liliana Bounegru, Jonathan Gray and Tommaso Venturini, will be launched at the International Journalism Festival in Perugia in April. Next week the team are bringing together multiple researchers to collaborate on mapping the misinformation ecosystems across Europe, with a particular focus on the Netherlands, France and Germany, because of upcoming elections.

Three Must-reads

How YouTube serves as the content engine of the Internet’s dark side: “There is a mammoth social platform…which hosts and even pays for a fathomless stock of bad information…and it’s been held up to virtually no scrutiny.” Buzzfeed, Joseph Bernstein

This Is How Your Hyperpartisan Political News Gets Made: Craig Silverman traced a group of liberal and conservative websites back to the same company. “The product they’re pitching is outrage,” said one liberal writer. Buzzfeed

Why Facts Don’t Change Our Minds: “‘Once formed,’ the researchers observed dryly, ‘impressions are remarkably perseverant.’” The New Yorker, Elizabeth Kolbert

Have a great weekend everyone!
The First Draft Team