First Draft News was a project "to fight mis- and disinformation online" founded in 2015 by nine organizations brought together by the Google News Lab. It included

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Twitter Twitter, officially known as X since 2023, is an American microblogging and social networking service. It is one of the world's largest social media platforms and one of the most-visited websites. Users can share short text messages, image ...

, the

Open Society Foundations Open Society Foundations (OSF), formerly the Open Society Institute, is an American grantmaking network founded by business magnate George Soros. Open Society Foundations financially supports civil society groups around the world, with the s ...

and several

philanthropic Philanthropy is a form of altruism that consists of "private initiatives for the public good, focusing on quality of life". Philanthropy contrasts with business initiatives, which are private initiatives for private good, focusing on material ...

organizations. In June 2022, First Draft announced it would be shutting down, with its mission continuing at the Information Futures Lab.

Project description

The project drew on experts and organisations working in the field, including reported.ly, Eyewitness Media Hub, Storyful and

Meedan Meedan is a technology not-for-profit that builds software and programmatic initiatives to strengthen journalism, digital literacy, and accessibility of information online and off. Meedan builds an open-source software platform for fact-checking ...

. Google News Lab developed and maintained firstdraftnews.org and supported the creation of new content. In September 2016, First Draft began coordinating "efforts between newsrooms, fact-checking organizations, and academic institutions to combat mis- and disinformation". Coalition members published how-to guides addressing topics such as

ethics Ethics is the philosophy, philosophical study of Morality, moral phenomena. Also called moral philosophy, it investigates Normativity, normative questions about what people ought to do or which behavior is morally right. Its main branches inclu ...

surrounding "use of eyewitness media" and how to "spot fake footage and

hoax A hoax (plural: hoaxes) is a widely publicised falsehood created to deceive its audience with false and often astonishing information, with the either malicious or humorous intent of causing shock and interest in as many people as possible. S ...

es". Newsrooms participating in the First Draft's CrossCheck project "cross-checked" each other, debunked stories, and developed methods to hinder "the spread of misleading and fabricated content" for the 2017 French, UK, and German elections. Claire Wardle, First Draft’s executive director, has stated: “With elections being a prime target for agents who create and spread disinformation, partnering with a research center that focuses on the intersection of media, politics and technology is a natural fit”. In October 2017, First Draft moved to the Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy, part of the John F. Kennedy School of Government at

Harvard University Harvard University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the History of the Puritans in North America, Puritan clergyma ...

. In February 2019, it was reported that First Draft has left Harvard, due to a "series of miscommunications". In June 2019, First Draft participated in a Trusted News Conference convened by the

BBC The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is a British public service broadcaster headquartered at Broadcasting House in London, England. Originally established in 1922 as the British Broadcasting Company, it evolved into its current sta ...

in response to alleged systemic

disinformation Disinformation is misleading content deliberately spread to deceive people, or to secure economic or political gain and which may cause public harm. Disinformation is an orchestrated adversarial activity in which actors employ strategic dece ...

during the

2019 Indian general election General elections were held in India in seven phases from 11 April to 19 May 2019 to elect the members of the 17th Lok Sabha. Votes were counted and the result was declared on 23 May. Around 912 million people were eligible to vote, and vote ...

. First Draft was a founding member of the Trusted News Initiative, which subsequently launched in September 2019. In June 2022, the First Draft mission moved to the Information Futures Lab from the Brown University School of Public Health. The First Draft website was archived and "hosted in perpetuity" by the

Internet Archive The Internet Archive is an American 501(c)(3) organization, non-profit organization founded in 1996 by Brewster Kahle that runs a digital library website, archive.org. It provides free access to collections of digitized media including web ...

, that it already had a partnership with since 2017.

Notes

References

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External links

First Draft
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Information Futures Lab

Google News Lab
Google Twitter Facebook Organizations established in 2015 Organizations disestablished in 2022 2015 establishments in the United States 2022 disestablishments in the United States American journalism organizations

Project description

Notes

See also

References

External links