Introducing the Disinfo Defense Toolkit for Organizers & Advocates
As voters sift through the onslaught of misleading narratives infiltrating our information ecosystem this election season, we believe it is more vital than ever to equip the public with the knowledge and skills to defend themselves against disinformation. We created Knowing the News, our disinformation defense and media literacy program, in early 2020 to respond to the threat disinformation poses in our society: chipping away at our collective trust in news, undermining our ability to have fact-based public discourse, sowing discord in communities, and moving with such stealth efficiency that solutions cannot outpace its spread.
Empowered individuals, inoculated to identify and prevent its spread, is the best way to fight back against disinformation. But this is no solitary game. It’s all hands on deck—this election season and well into the future. That’s why we partnered with ReFrame Mentorship this fall to create the Disinfo Defense Toolkit, a go-to guide to equip organizers and advocates with tools to understand the threat of disinformation and with tailored messaging to embed into their existing work so they can best respond to disinformation.
The Disinfo Defense Toolkit has four main sections:
1. Introduction to Disinformation and Misinformation
2. Solutions for Combating Disinformation: Inoculation and Response
3. Tools for Working with Journalists
4. Messaging and Content Guides
We acknowledge that this toolkit is just a starting point but a powerful one that may empower our communities as we confront daily reminders of forces seeking to erode our democracy and wield words as a weapon to shut down the more vulnerable.
If you are an organizer or advocate and would like to dive deeper into our resources or host a defense workshop in your community, reach out to us at [email protected].
Many thanks to our partners in this space who lent their resources and expertise to being part of the toolkit:
American Press Institute
BuzzFeed
First Draft
Joan Donovan
Kairos
Media Justice
Strategic Victory Fund
The Leadership Conference
Ultraviolet
United We Dream
Voting Rights Lab
Win Black/Pa’lante
