A resource by Jayne Cravens
  via coyotecommunications.com & coyoteboard.com (same web site)

Updated February 16, 2020

Your initiative should not wait to hear about misinformation about your work or your community; you need to be actively seeking it out. Another section of this guide talked about training and supporting all employees and volunteers in being good communicators and in how to identify misinformation so they can let your office know about such. All partners and messengers, formal and informal, should feel empowered to be monitors, to gather and report on feedback (and that they know exactly how to report observations about conversations they are seeing/hearing). They should understand that community conversations happen formally and informally: on talk radio, at religious-based gatherings, around dinner tables, while shopping, within text messages, etc.

Monitor and supervise, formally and informally, on an ongoing basis, communications activities - formal and informal, face-to-face and online. Look at what is being said on Twitter, on Facebook, on popular online fora, and in the comments section of online newspaper articles. What keywords and hashtags do rumor-mongers and trolls use?

Be prepared to reply to these online comments if they are spreading misinformation. Observe message delivery whenever possible to ensure deliverers are remaining fact-based. 

Seek out misinformation online and be ready to counter it with your own Internet activities, via web sites, online discussion groups/bulletin boards, and email. Good examples of this are FEMA's Hurricane Sandy Rumor Control web site in 2012 and its Hurricane Irma Rumor Control site in 2017. If someone is circulating a video, for instance, that represents a falsehood, you need to be ready to debunk it. Can you prove that people in the video, for instance, aren't really random members of the public but, rather, members of a particular group? Is the video really from the location it says it's from, or can you show that it's not? Learning about the uploader of the video is a good way to gauge his/her credibility. What other videos has the uploader distributed? Are they from the same location? Do they have the same production quality, or does it look like they were taken by different people/cameras? Are there other online or social media accounts linked to that user that can help identify where this person is based and what sort of media and information he/she posts? You can also upload any image or screen grab from a video to the Google image search, and Google will produce the image’s online history. You can also copy the video url into the Amnesty International YouTube Data Viewer and the site will give you the video’s thumbnail images and a link to a reverse image search for each one.

If misinformation campaigns can be anticipated, such as before an election, or if time allows, consider recruiting volunteers specifically to be trained and ready to identify and report such, as appropriate. For instance, in anticipation of state assembly elections, police in Bareilly, Uttar Pradesh (UP), India started recruiting "digital volunteers to "keep an eye on and counter 'online rumour-mongering", to report on and counter 'communally-sensitive messages and polarization propaganda' that "has potential to disturb peace in the region." A deputy inspector general of police said "A riot-like situation takes place at many locations due to false rumours spread on WhatsApp, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and other such sites. As UP is gearing for state assembly elections, scheduled for next year, there are chances that few persons will try to mislead people for their communal agenda, creating law and order problem. To thwart their attempts, we need such initiatives." However, such efforts have to be handled with extreme care: coordinators of such an initiative could be accused of creating an effort to censor lawful dissent or initiating an intimidation campaign against those who don't agree with your organization or the government.

And what should you do if you find someone is writing blogs or producing videos that are critical about your program, or has written a negative review on a third party site like Yelp? It depends on so many things. If it's someone else's opinion, and their online messages aren't getting much attention, the best course may be to live with that and ignore it, as people are entitled to their opinions about you and your work, even if you strongly disagree with it. If the person has gotten facts wrong - if they say you didn't have an event on a certain date in a certain place, but you did - you may want to comment on their blog or social media post and say so. But, again, you may NOT want to respond at all, especially on your own blog or social media post, because then you create more publicity for the criticism, shining a spotlight on something that you really do not want more people to read.

What about a lawsuit against someone spreading misinformation? That may be an option in your country, but remember that by doing so, you are bringing publicity to the critical statements - you are tying yourself and your organization much more closely to them. You may even make the person you are suing seem like a martyr, a David against a Goliath. A better idea to stay positive in the public's eye in the long run may be to write a rebuttal on your own blog and move on. Even if you are seeing a drop in event attendance, a drop in the number of volunteers, or a drop in donations, and you think it's because people have a growing sense of negativity about your program or someone associated with such, "let's sue!" may not be the best strategy. Again, you may end up giving the critic more attention and create more believers in that person's narrative. If you have built trust with clients, volunteers and donors, you have an army of people that might  love to be a part of videos, podcasts, blogs and memes celebrating your organization and the great work it does - and this can be far, far more effective in countering a negative narrative than a lawsuit.

Back to the first page of this resource on preventing misinformation from interfering with development and aid initiatives.

Back to my development resources main page.