Annex 1: Which partners, initiatives & tools might CSOs and NGOs find useful?

For civil society organizations and NGOs, operating either in the humanitarian action and international development spheres, partners with deep experience in rumor tracking, media, and communications, and local civil society organizations with knowledge of culture, politics, actors, history, and connections are an important component of any strategy to push back on disinformation.

• In December of 2020, The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace published Mapping Worldwide Initiatives to Counter Influence Operations as part of its Partnership for Countering Influence Operations (PCIO), which describes and lists more than 460 initiatives and organizations around the globe working to combat disinformation, as well as highlighting the need for more knowledge sharing and skills-building initiatives.123
• Disinfo Cloud is an initiative of the State Department’s Global Engagement Center (GEC) and is available through a free sign-up process. This database includes nearly 300 organizations, including those that provide machine learning analysis of social media, media monitoring, fact-checking, media literacy, social network mapping, and more.
• A recent National Endowment for Democracy report Mapping Civil Society Responses to Disinformation: An International Forum Working Paper provides a list of nearly 200 organizations all working to combat disinformation around the globe. This database includes the organization’s regional focus as well as information on their initiatives.
• The CEPPS Guide to Countering Disinformation (mentioned also in the Disinformation, Democracy, Rights, and Governance section) includes an intervention database with nearly 300 examples listed by intervention type, country or region, and implementing organization.
• Duke Reporters’ Lab Fact-Checking Database is a map of more than 300 fact-checking organizations around the globe.
• E.U. Disinformation Lab is a research, knowledge sharing, advocacy, and outreach initiative focused on the impact of disinformation in the E.U. They provide a list of dozens of initiatives focused on countering disinformation in Europe and elsewhere.
• The Project on Computational Propaganda by Oxford’s Internet Institute provides dozens of resources for combatting disinformation, categorized by purpose and language. This resource provides tools in Arabic, Chinese, Dutch, English, French, German, Hindi, Italian, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, and Turkish.
• The Campaign Toolkit is a free resource produced by the Institute for Strategic Dialogue for organizations looking to create and deploy online campaigns against hate, polarization, and extremism. It includes resources for running information campaigns online, including how CSOs and NGOs can access free credits from many major online ad networks, including Google, Facebook, and others. It includes resources available in English, French, German, Arabic, and Urdu.
• Through the Countering Truth Decay Initiative, RAND Corporation has identified and characterized a select few online tools developed by nonprofits and civil society organizations to target online disinformation.