Five Free Open Source Digital Tools To Combat Disinformation

Several news outlets across Brazil are participating in the Codesinfo project to produce digital tools to fight disinformation. Image: Screenshot, Codesinfo Brazil’s Institute for the Development of Journalism, or Projor for its initials in Portuguese, launched the second phase of the Innovation Fund to Combat Disinformation (Codesinfo), focused on the dissemination of five open-source digital... Developed by Brazilian media outlets in late 2024, the solutions are available free of charge to any journalistic organization inside and outside Brazil. To reach international media outlets, Francisco Belda, Projor’s director of operations and coordinator of Codesinfo, said that the Codesinfo website is being translated into English and Spanish and the partner media outlets that created... “We believe that the five tools strengthen civic journalism in general,” Belda told LatAm Journalism Review (LJR).

“This is due to their role in valuing the concept of authorship (Quem Disse? tool), fact-checking (Check-up), scientific evidence in environmental and climate change coverage (Capí chatbot), production of short videos based on textual reports (Mosaico) and in the provision of updated contextual information (Xarta).” Capí is an artificial intelligence chatbot developed by Ambiental Media that was launched in beta version in November 2024. The tool’s purpose is to provide clear, up-to-date, and reliable answers to users’ questions on climate issues. The Codesinfo project by Projor (Institute for the Development of Journalism) begins its second phase to expand the use of tools to combat disinformation and disseminate them to national and international media outlets. Brazil’s Institute for the Development of Journalism, or Projor for its initials in Portuguese, launched the second phase of the Innovation Fund to Combat Disinformation (Codesinfo), focused on the dissemination of five open-source digital...

Developed by Brazilian media outlets in late 2024, the solutions are available free of charge to any journalistic organization inside and outside Brazil. To reach international media outlets, Francisco Belda, Projor's director of operations and coordinator of Codesinfo, said that the Codesinfo website is being translated into English and Spanish and the partner media outlets that created... "We believe that the five tools strengthen civic journalism in general," Belda told LatAm Journalism Review (LJR). "This is due to their role in valuing the concept of authorship (Quem Disse? tool), fact-checking (Check-up), scientific evidence in environmental and climate change coverage (Capí chatbot), production of short videos based on textual reports (Mosaico) and in the provision of updated contextual information (Xarta)." Capí fights environmental and climate disinformation through an AI-powered chatbot (Disclosure/Codesinfo)

Brazilian Journalism Institute Unveils Open-Source Toolkit to Combat Disinformation The fight against online disinformation has received a significant boost with the launch of five innovative open-source digital tools by Brazil’s Institute for the Development of Journalism (Projor). These tools, developed by Brazilian media outlets under Projor’s Innovation Fund to Combat Disinformation (Codesinfo), are freely available to any journalistic organization worldwide, marking a collaborative effort to bolster journalistic integrity and public trust... Projor is actively promoting these tools internationally by translating its website into English and Spanish and supporting networking initiatives for the participating media outlets. The tools aim to empower civic journalism by enhancing authorship transparency, facilitating fact-checking, providing reliable climate information, simplifying video production, and ensuring up-to-date context within news reports. Capí: An AI-Powered Chatbot for Climate Clarity

Developed by Ambiental Media, Capí is an artificial intelligence chatbot designed to provide accurate and accessible information on climate change. Leveraging Google’s Gemini large language model and a curated database of scientific reports, including those from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Capí addresses user queries with reliable, science-backed answers. While still in beta, Capí utilizes retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) to minimize inaccuracies and tailor responses to specific contexts. The chatbot learns from user interactions through prompt tuning while maintaining user privacy. Its infrastructure is hosted on Google Cloud servers optimized for minimal environmental impact. Ambiental Media emphasizes Capí’s role in supporting journalistic research, fact-checking, and brainstorming, acknowledging the ongoing development and potential for refinement inherent in beta AI technology.

Check-up: Scrutinizing Healthcare Advertising for Misinformation In the digital age, misinformation proliferates online, making fact-checking and the dissemination of reliable information essential for citizens. To address this growing challenge, free, open-source tools are proving invaluable. These tools allow journalists, citizens, and educators to better understand and combat misinformation. In this article, we will examine five of these innovative digital tools and their impact in the fight against misinformation. Online misinformation represents one of the greatest contemporary challenges, particularly in the run-up to elections or during health crises.

False information spreads rapidly, reaching a wide audience even before it is verified. To better understand this phenomenon, let’s examine some of the causes and consequences of misinformation. Misinformation can manifest itself in several forms, ranging from unfounded rumors to manipulation campaigns orchestrated by influence groups. Here are some crucial issues: The harmful effects of misinformation are felt on several levels: To address this reality, it is imperative to have tools available to detect, verify, and counter disinformation.

Deepfakes and disinformation have the ability to move financial markets, influence public opinion, and scam businesses and individuals out of millions of dollars. The Semantic Forensics program (SemaFor) is a DARPA-funded initiative to create comprehensive forensic technologies to help mitigate online threats perpetuated via synthetic and manipulated media. Over the last eight years, Kitware has helped DARPA create a powerful set of tools to analyze whether media has been artificially generated or manipulated. Kitware and DARPA are now bringing those tools out of the lab to defend digital authenticity in the real world. Kitware has a history of building various image and video forensics algorithms to defend against disinformation by detecting various types of manipulations, beginning with DARPA’s Media Forensics (MediFor) program. Building on this foundation, our team expanded its focus to include multimodal analysis of text, audio, and video under the SemaFor program.

For additional information about Kitware’s contributions to SemaFor, check out the “Voices from DARPA” podcast episode, “Demystifying Deepfakes,” where Arslan Basharat, assistant director of computer vision at Kitware, is a guest speaker. DARPA has recently announced two initiatives related to the SemaFor program: AI FORCE and Analytic Catalog. The AI Forensics Open Research Challenge Evaluations (AI FORCE) are a series of publicly available challenges aimed at developing defensive, forensics techniques related to generative AI capabilities. The Analytic Catalog is a collection of open source tools available for the research community and the industry to advance the state-of-the-art in digital forensics. In keeping with Kitware’s open source software heritage, we have made significant contributions to launching the Analytic Catalog with several detection and attribution analytics from our team related to images, video, text, and multimodal... We plan to add additional cutting-edge techniques for combatting disinformation to this catalog in the future.

For instance, one of these analytics can help detect AI-generated images, such as those created by Generative Adversarial Network (GAN) algorithms. Recently we have also developed methods for more modern AI-generation techniques like the Diffusion generators. In addition to our work on photos and video, our team members have also contributed to the development of tools for detecting and analyzing other forms of disinformation, such as synthetic audio as well... These tools are crucial for combating the spread of false information and propaganda on social media and other digital formats. Given the potential for AI to spread misinformation, it is critical to equip organizations with tools and strategies that counteract false narratives, especially when it comes to AI-generated content like deepfakes. Below is a comprehensive list of tools to help identify and mitigate misinformation and disinformation.

Click the title to expand. Snopes: Verifies a wide range of claims, rumors, and misinformation. (snopes.com) PolitiFact: Focuses on political claims and rates their accuracy. (politifact.com) FactCheck.org: Non-partisan project analyzing political statements.

(factcheck.org) Reuters Fact Check: Verifies viral claims and misinformation. (reuters.com/fact-check) Disinformation has become one of the most pressing challenges in the digital era. Whether it’s fake news, propaganda, or manipulated media, the spread of false information threatens democracy, social cohesion, and public trust. To give you an idea, according to the Pew Research Center, one in five Americans receive their daily news intake from social media platforms.

In that same survey, 64 percent of adults said “fake news” caused confusion on basic facts, and 23 percent said they had shared “fake news,” either knowingly or unknowingly. In the past few years also Europe has been a frequent target of disinformation campaigns, with foreign actors leveraging digital platforms to sow discord, influence elections, and erode public confidence in institutions. If we want to address this issue, we will have to choose for a proactive approach, particularly within (digital) education, to equip individuals with the skills to critically assess and counter misinformation. In this article we will show you some past disinformation campaigns in Europe, how they were countered (or not), the risks of unchecked disinformation, and how education can play a pivotal role in combating... The Rise of Codesinfo as a Collaborative Combat against Disinformation Brazil’s Institute for the Development of Journalism (Projor), formerly associated with the open-source initiative known as Codesinfo, is delving into its second phase of innovation funding to combat disinformation.

As a free and accessible platform for journalists worldwide, this initiative hinges on five open-source digital tools designed to enhance civic journalism and foster a culture of fact-checking and transparency. Led by Francisco Belda, the project’s operations team, Belda played a pivotal role in launching the second phase of Codesinfo. The tools developed by Projor are available for download without cost, accessible to any journalist, regardless of origin. The project relies on contributions from legal and administrative sectors to establish user-friendly platforms, showcasing a collaborative approach that bridges research institutions and journalistic organizations. The five open-source tools developed by Projor each serve a unique purpose, contributing to a comprehensive approach to civic journalism. These include tools focused on authorship, fact-checking, scientific evidence in environmental and climate change contexts, the production of promotional content like mosaics, and contextual updates.

Each tool is rooted in established principles of accountability and transparency, intended to empower journalists with powerful tools that align with broader democratic principles. Gary Price, a renowned figures in the field of information technology, provided invaluable insights during the launch of Codesinfo. As a librarian, technologist, consultant, and conference speaker, Price’s tenure at Ask.com and his educational background in Wayne State University’s massively open online courses (MOOCs) established him as a leader in online information services. Known for his commitment to retr一條 gü划和中国的科技创新， Gary Price respectfully shared his expertise on the initiative, highlighting the collaborative potential of the project.

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