Module: Countering Misinformation

The Digital Health and Rights Project (DHRP) is delighted to announce our new module on Countering Misinformation. The module was developed for the Digital Empowerment Hub by Dr. Jack Wilson in collaboration with civil society and community advisors for DHRP across Columbia, Ghana, and Vietnam. It iequips community advocates and others to  counter misinformation on health on social media and in social chat groups. In this blog post, Jack discusses what led him to DHRP, the process of creating the module, and its goals.

In 2024, I completed my PhD at University of Warwick’s Centre for Interdisciplinary Methodologies, on the far-right conspiracy theory and political movement known as ‘QAnon.’  My research began with my observation that people who promoted or participated in QAnon often encouraged others to ‘do your own research’ into the claims they were making – with the implication being that anyone who did their own research would arrive at similarly conspiratorial conclusions. I wanted to know how QAnon participants understood and performed ‘research’: what was QAnon’s epistemology, or way of understanding and producing ‘knowledge’? What methods and tools did they use? And so on. I began this project in 2020, and  the course of the Covid-19 pandemic coincided with my study of QAnon’s approach. I noted the many ways in which conspiracy theories, misinformation, and disinformation undermined trust in public health efforts.

It was impossible to ignore how conspiracy theories, misinformation, and disinformation appeared to infect nearly every aspect of some peoples’ perception of public health initiatives. While there have been many efforts to correct these misapprehensions, much like a case of long Covid, these ideas have remained remarkably difficult to shake in contemporary politics and culture.

My PhD research indicated that it might be more impactful to counter misinformation by challenging the ‘research’ methods and tools used by conspiracy theorists, than to argue about their conclusions. I wanted to test this hypothesis to see if it was 1) true and 2) applicable to other contexts, and so from 2024-25, I joined DHRP as part of my University of Warwick Economic and Social Research Council Impact Acceleration Account-funded postdoctoral fellowship Understanding QAnon through its infrastructure: connecting policy and media platform analysis to combat disinformation and radicalisation (grant reference: ES/X004635/1). The collaboration gave me a chance to engage with HIV activists, human rights lawyers, and networks of youth activists and people living with HIV from many countries, many of whom encounter misinformation online. This module is the result.

The module is intended to give users the tools to identify and counter misinformation online. The module has been developed out of responses to a survey of 25 civil society and community advisors for DHRP in Columbia, Ghana, Vietnam about the types of misinformation and disinformation they have encountered, and the strategies they have successfully employed to counter this bad information. The module therefore specifically addresses misinformation relating to HIV, and similar problems faced by key populations affected by HIV (key populations are defined by WHO as including gay men and other men who have sex with men, sex workers, people in prisons and other closed settings, people who inject drugs, and transgender and gender-diverse people).

The module is structured as a series of scenarios, activities, and links for use in self-paced learning or in a group training. Specifically, the module covers:

 How to identify misinformation, disinformation, and malinformation.

 Ways to verify whether information is truthful or not.

 Strategies to counter bad information: including ways to engage with people who post misinformation, proactively addressing misinforming narratives, as well as building community resources and partnerships to counter misinformation quickly and effectively.

 Ways users can protect themselves from the potential hazards of countering misinformation.

It is written in clear, accessible language, with case studies and examples readers can try themselves, or in small group workshops.

Although there are many useful resources for countering misinformation and disinformation in general, I sought to create an educational resource that spoke directly to the experiences and concerns of DHRP’s stakeholders, particularly its research participants and key populations.

Accordingly, the scenarios outlined in the module were drawn from responses to the survey and DHRP’s broader research findings, with the strategies outlined therein intended to address the circumstances, resources, and technical expertise of our stakeholders.  All this said, the module can be used by activists and individuals from other backgrounds who also would like to counter misinformation within or about their communities.

Try the Countering Misinformation Module for yourself to see how you can protect your community!

We welcome your feedback: please contact us at [email protected], or on social media