A new initiative aims to promote the news literacy of people in Saxony with regard to elections. The Bertelsmann Foundation, the Amadeu Antonio Foundation and the non-profit organization Codetekt have launched the project called "faktenstark" (fact-strong).
"More and more false information is circulating on the internet and in social media, which is spread deliberately and also in a coordinated manner in order to deceive and manipulate - so-called disinformation," the initiators announced on Wednesday. The project is intended to counteract this.
Workshops are planned, for example, in which interested people aged 18 and over will be given background knowledge. They are to learn strategies to recognize and counter disinformation in everyday life.
Information about fake news and how to recognize it is also available on the initiative's website. Findings that the initiative draws from monitoring social media online will also be published there.
"We are investigating which disinformation is spread on different platforms such as Facebook, Instagram or Telegram, who the senders are, what strategies are behind them and what trends there are," said Una Tietz, project manager at the Amadeu Antonio Foundation. "At the same time, we analyze their impact, i.e. the debates that arise from them in the digital public sphere." A podcast on the topic is planned from March.
Local elections are due to take place in Saxony on June 9 - at the same time as the European Parliament elections. The state parliamentary elections are scheduled for September 1.
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