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The fight against disinformation: the German-Austrian Digital Media Observatory (GADMO) launches its website
The widest alliance between German-speaking digital investigators and researchers, known as GADMO, has launched its website in a further step in the battle against online falsehoods.
The website gadmo.eu gives access to more than 300 fact-checking articles in German. These articles have been produced by four organisations fighting disinformation in Germany and Austria: Agence France-Presse (AFP), Deutsche Presse-Agentur (dpa), Austria Presse Agentur (APA), and independent research network Correctiv.
The articles are the result of investigations into viral, suspect, and potentially harmful content that is circulating online. Disinformation has been particularly abundant since Russian troops invaded Ukraine a year ago.
The GADMO project received a funding from the European Union in 2022. The project gathers digital investigation teams, the Austrian Institute of Technology, and researchers from the TU Dortmund – which is the project coordinator. Greek company ATC also belongs to the coalition and manages all of its technical aspects.
In order to detect manipulated images, scientists analyse disinformation campaigns and develop AI-based tools.
The GADMO website will also include online tutorials and educational tools to help the public identify false information and limit its spread.
“This project, co-financed by the European Commission, is an acknowledgement of AFP’s value in digital investigation at a global level”, said Yacine Le Forestier, AFP’s deputy Europe director and Berlin bureau chief who co-manages European media projects at AFP. “We are proud of being a member of this initiative and of helping fight disinformation in Europe, which is a major challenge for our democracies.”
GADMO belongs to EDMO (European Digital Media Observatory). This independent coordinating body was created in 2020 by the European Commission to unit digital investigators, scientists, and other organisations in the framework of its strategy to fight disinformation. Its network covers all of the EU via 14 hubs.
About AFP :
AFP is a leading global news agency, providing 24/7 coverage of world news across all fields. Since 2017, AFP has built up the world's largest digital investigation network, with more than 140 journalists covering 85 countries to date. These specialised journalists are a reference in the fight against disinformation and publish in 24 languages on the factcheck.afp.com website.
Since 2020 AFP publishes digital investigation articles in German, produced by a dedicated team in Berlin and Vienna. As result, AFP was chosen by the European Commission to take part in seven other platforms of EDMO’s network that covers 16 countries, in addition to GADMO.AFP is also a member of IFCN (International Fact-Checking Networks) and participated in the writing of EFCSN (European Fact-Checking Standards Network)'s Code.
AFP also belongs to Facebook and Instagram’s programme aiming to identify misleading information circulating on these social networks.