(NEW YORK)— Offering hope in the fight against false information flourishing online, PEN America today released a new report about its pilot program to train citizen “trusted messengers” in three metropolitan areas as an effective model for resisting harmful disinformation.
The 39-page report is based on PEN America’s pilot program, carried out over nine months in three metropolitan areas (Dallas-Fort Worth, Miami and Phoenix), from June 2024 to February of this year. The free expression organization brought together 501 people from diverse backgrounds for the Disinformation and Community Engagement program, to help build awareness and resilience to false information. Participants included community and faith leaders, educators, journalists, students, organizers, seniors, librarians, and everyday citizens. The report includes case studies on the trainings from the three cities.
Henry Hicks, manager of U.S. Free Expression programs at PEN America, who led the initiative, said: “Disinformation is one of the gravest challenges we face. We know that it polarizes our politics, creates distrust in institutions and breeds cynicism that undermines participation in democracy at every level. We’re seeing its impact more and more each day. The trainings we led offered ample evidence that helping individuals to understand disinformation and empowering them to discuss it within their circles of friends, family, co-workers and others is an effective way to build resilience against it.”
Over the course of 23 trainings, participants were taught how to consume information critically, address falsehoods, talk to others about disinformation, and share these skills with their immediate circles. Carried out during the last presidential campaign and election, when disinformation was spiking online, participants in the program gained a heightened sense of confidence and empowerment to engage in difficult conversations about disinformation and news consumption with friends and family. Significantly, based on surveys, trusted messengers’ confidence rose post-training and remained elevated.
PEN America’s trainers focused more on measuring the training’s impact on trusted messengers themselves, rather than examining the messengers’ impact on the information consumption habits of the individual or individuals the messengers subsequently engaged with. Through surveys, the program tracked trusted messengers’ self-reported sense of empowerment—along with various anecdotal benchmarks—to gauge impact.
PEN America based its trainings on polls that show that while Americans’ trust in media and political institutions remains at a historic low, friends and family are a key resource that Americans trust for information. Further, the organization grounded its trainings in a 2022 analysis by the Union of Concerned Scientists, which indicated “building relationships through one-on-one conversations over time has proven to be a highly effective way to inoculate others against disinformation, share credible information, and mobilize people into action so that solidarity grows and disinformation campaigns are thwarted.” The initiative was based on the principles of “relational organizing”— which has been successful in mobilizing around elections — where conversations between friends, family, neighbors, and co-workers are used to build and leverage trust around candidates.
PEN America worked to push back against the escalating threats from deceptive information just as social media platforms were scaling back content moderation and as aggressive legal and legislative pressure chilled or even shut down counter-disinformation research.
The moment called for new approaches as PEN America’s partners in the three cities expressed the view that local-level work was critical to any effort to combat disinformation. They believed that person-to-person interventions were key, though often viewed them as being uncomfortable or frightening as an approach.
Responding to a need for learning beyond our three focus cities, PEN America also designed a series of training webinars on disinformation-related topics, including cognitive bias, fact-checking standards, and the role of influencers in our media landscape. The organization also invested in regional nonprofit organizations with established audiences and positions of trust that sought to pilot new initiatives, including using tools like an AI chatbot and WhatsApp to offset the influence of falsehoods, and measure their impact.
“Disinformation isn’t going away; in fact, we are seeing it become a strategy for growing and maintaining power in today’s political climate,” said Kurt Sampsel, senior program manager for Disinformation and Community Engagement. “Our trainings demonstrated impact and it is our hope that national, state, and local organizations can build on our work and cultivate resilience among their own constituencies.”
With the report’s release, the writers and free expression organization convened an online discussion with its experts and staff who led the trainings focused on what worked and what did not and how individuals or organizations can advance their own work to counter the pernicious influence of disinformation. The event was recorded: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eSVCYcjZBg4
About PEN America
PEN America stands at the intersection of literature and human rights to protect free expression in the United States and worldwide. We champion the freedom to write, recognizing the power of the word to transform the world. Our mission is to unite writers and their allies to celebrate creative expression and defend the liberties that make it possible. Learn more at pen.org.
Contact: Suzanne Trimel, STrimel@PEN.org, 201-247-5057