Grants:Simple/Applications/Wikimedia Espana/2020/I Meeting on the fight against disinformation in Wikipedia


I Meeting on the fight against disinformation in Wikipedia
(Program story)


Introduction edit

In 2020 we began a planned line of work on the fight against disinformation on Wikipedia, as part of our Institutional Relations and Public Policy program. We have focused on:

  • Analyze how disinformation campaigns work, how and to what extent do they move to Wikipedia
  • Develop practices or tools that allow the Wikipedian community to identify hoaxes and mitigate their effects on the information that can be accessed from the platform.

During this year the work has materialized in the I Meeting on the fight against disinformation in Wikipedia, in which the center for digital culture and citizen participation Medialab-Prado has collaborated. It was held virtually between November 4 and 7 to generate knowledge and strategies to fight disinformation on Wikipedia.

Methodology edit

 
A moment of the Meeting

To delve into the matter, it seemed crucial to us to build alliances with professionals who are dedicated to the analysis and fight against misinformation from different fields. We spend the first part of the year mapping to identify these actors and initiate contact with journalists, fact-checking agencies, people engaged in academic research, and activists.

We spent time and meetings to design the methodology of the event, which had to be adapted to the needs and security measures derived from the health crisis. After postponing it to avoid risky situations, we decided to change the face-to-face format that it was going to have initially for a 100% virtual one. The move to the online format led to a change in methodology, dates and times, to ensure that the work sessions were profitable and effective.

At the end of summer we began to contact the experts whom we wanted to invite to work with the Wikipedian community. In November we brought together all these agents in a meeting that was divided into two phases:

  • A two-day workshop of shared work, with access by invitation in which 10 experts in Wikipedia and in the fight against fake news participated. We delve into the methodologies to combat misinformation and its possible application in the specific environment of Wikipedia.
  • A discussion table on disinformation and free knowledge open to the general public. More than 30 people connected to the session and it has already been viewed by 360 people on a delayed basis. It can be consulted here.

The success of the project had a lot to do with the diversity of profiles selected to participate in the meeting:

  • Academic environment: Lorena Cano (postdoctoral researcher at the University of Valencia), Antonio García Jiménez (Professor of Journalism at the Rey Juan Carlos University), Dafne Calvo (PhD in communication from the University of Valladolid).
  • Data verification agencies: Desirée García (Head of EFE Verifica),, Alba Tobella (Founder of Verificat).
  • Activists: Sergio Salgado (Head of communication and networks of Xnet).
  • Wikimedia Ecosystem: María Sefidari (President of the Wikimedia Foundation), Montserrat Boix (Journalist and Wikipedia editor), Florencia Claes (Vice-president of Wikimedia Spain).

Learning points edit

 
Decalogues after the Meeting
  • Wikipedia and its information treatment processes are references for data verification agencies, people who are dedicated to research and activists. Obviously there is a lot of room for improvement in this new line of work, but it is important to recognize the good practices related to the free knowledge movement and the work that the Wikipedian community has been doing to offer quality and verifiable information during the last 20 years.
  • The fight against disinformation is a growing issue, which creates possibilities for collaboration with other entities interested in guaranteeing the right of access to information.
  • The economic collaboration of MedialabPrado allowed us to dedicate resources to something that we had not done so far in other activities: outsourcing the facilitation of the workshop. Although the design of the methodology and the general coordination of the meeting has been carried out from WMES, this has meant a significant unloading of work and has allowed the integration of the knowledge of an expert in the field from the initial phases of the project.
  • Adjusting methodologies for participation from a face-to-face environment to an online one is not easy, but thanks to this project we have been able to work with new tools beyond videoconferencing: collective documentation on pads and development of participation dynamics in Miro.
  • Setting objectives is important to achieve results. Being clear that the objective of the workshop was to develop a series of recommendations for people who read and edit Wikipedia helped to focus the debate.
  • Design is important. Having the resources to present the results of the meeting in a visual format has been one of the key points of the process.
  • After the open debate session we were able to verify that, in general, the Wikipedian community is interested in the fight against disinformation and needs training and resources on the subject.

Improvement points edit

  • For a better management of the workshop it would have been convenient to have support in the tasks of graphic and textual documentation of the conference.
  • Fighting misinformation is an exciting topic that can have many approaches. The depth and breadth of the subject require more time. This meeting can only be conceived as a first contact.
  • Group management is not always simple and it is important to pay attention to good moderation practices to better manage the distribution of time and the sensitivities of the participants.

Results edit

After the meeting, we compiled the work done in the workshop and elaborated a series of recommendations to deal with misinformation in the free encyclopedia and give tools to the reading and publishing communities. We have published them in the form of a Decalogue for the critical reading of Wikipedia and another tactical Decalogue for the Wikipedia edition with a focus on the fight against disinformation. The public open debate session can also be viewed here.