Gong organised the digital study visit to CEDMO (Central European Digital Media Observatory) on April 8th, with the aim of introducing the organisations and their members, as well as sharing their experiences of implementing the project within the European Digital Media Observatory (EDMO), a platform that brings together relevant organizations and individuals to detect and analyse disinformation campaigns, the impact of these campaigns on society and democracy, promote media literacy activities, monitor online platform policies and the digital media ecosystem. The focus of the visit was to present the implemented and future activities of the teams, especially in the areas of fact-checking, AI tools and media literacy. Especially relevant was the field of AI tools due to the discussion on the different methods that the AI tools can be designed to help against disinformation - while Gong and its partners focus their AI tools on automatic recognition of disinformation narratives and frases, CEDMO and its partners placed the focus of their AI tools on providing fact-checking organisations with help in their work.
Given that both organizations implement projects whose activities and methods are similar in nature, the exchange of experiences and techniques opened the possibility for further cooperation among project members, and for sharing useful information and positive examples of practice, planned to continue in the future for the successful implementation of the project and more successful joint fight against misinformation.
Gong project "Pro-fact: Research, education, fact-checking and disclosure of disinformation narratives related to COVID-19 in Croatia" is being implemented in cooperation with the partners Faculty of Political Science in Zagreb, Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computing in Zagreb, University of Dubrovnik and Faktograf. hr. It aims to study disinformation related to COVID-19 and to establish strategies for comprehensively counteracting it at several levels with a multidisciplinary and cross-sectoral approach. As an effective response to the challenges for democracy and society, the project uses a combination of different expertise and methods - uncovering sources and actors, networks of disinformation narratives from different spheres and combining techniques to combat misinformation about COVID-19.
The Central European Digital Media Observatory (CEDMO), as an independent non-partisan multidisciplinary hub, aims to identify, research and prioritise the most critical sources and causes of information disorders in Central Europe (mainly the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Poland). This international consortium was created to propose a set of short and longer-term actions, as well as recommendations to help civil society, public institutions and the private sector respond to the declining trust in key institutions and help society to resist the effect of increasing exposure to disinformation. The consortium is made of Agence France-Presse (AFP), Athens Technology Center, Czech Technical University in Prague, Charles University in Prague, Demagog.cz, Kempelen institut of Intelligent Technology, University of Ss. Cyril and Methodius in Trnava, and the University SWPS.
