Find your allies and partners in countering disinformation
Cathleen Berger, Dr. Joachim Rother
Headline after headline is pointing to the critical importance of 2024 as a super election year for democracies around the world. Many of the relevant analyses point to the multifaceted challenges to our electoral processes, including due to digital disinformation campaigns. Thankfully, there are a great number of topical experts, fact-checkers, researchers, innovators, and digital rights advocates defending democracy every day. Today, we are releasing a global mapping of over 200 initiatives countering disinformation at all levels.
International landscape mapping of counter-disinformation practices
Who are these counter-disinformation experts? How many are they and where can you find them? Which approaches, strategies or innovative tools are particularly successful in countering disinformation and why?
We asked ourselves these questions too when we first launched our international research into good practices for countering disinformation in early 2023. Now, 10 months later, building on many hours of desk research, expert interviews as well as a series of research engagements supported by renowned regional partners, we were able to identify over 200 initiatives and organisations, who are tackling the many facets and challenges that disinformation poses in all parts of the world.
This list is not exhaustive. Some countries and regions received more attention than others in the research process and new initiatives and organisations are joining the fight, too. This means: If you notice an initiative missing, we’d love to hear from you, so we can continue expanding the database.
A global overview, for you to filter on topics, region, stakeholder group and more
In this version of the database, you can find all 200+ initiatives. But importantly, you can also filter and adjust the list according to your needs. For instance, you can search by focus regions, stakeholder groups, methods applied, or topical keywords such as hate speech, health, or climate misinformation.
We hope that this will on the one hand help inspire you and others because there is so much great work to learn from. And on the other hand, we hope that this will make finding allies in your respective work or area easier. Each entry includes a short description of the initiative as well as a link for you to explore the organisation further.
The mapping intends to provide a resource for everyone dealing with questions around disinformation on the international stage. Whether you are a policy expert trying to get an overview of what is currently being done in the Asia-Pacific region, a scientist looking for data on anti-disinformation initiatives, or if you are working for a civil society organisation yourself and wondering how to build new alliances: the mapping offers plenty of pointers to enrich your work.
Join us and start exploring: Good practices to counter disinformation
Cathleen Berger
Cathleen Berger
Co-Lead
Cathleen Berger’s professional experience spans across sectors: academia, government, non-profit, corporate, and start-up. Her work and research focus on the intersection of digital technologies, sustainability, and social impact. She currently works with the Bertelsmann Stiftung as Co-Lead for Upgrade Democracy as well as the Reinhard Mohn Prize 2024 and Senior Expert on future technologies and sustainability. In addition, she occasionally advises and works with social purpose companies and organisations on their climate and social impact strategies.
Previously, she directed the B Corporation certification process of a pre-seed climate tech start-up, launched and headed up Mozilla’s environmental sustainability programme, worked within the International Cyber Policy Coordination Staff at the German Foreign Office, as a consultant with Global Partners Digital, a research assistant at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs (SWP), and a visiting lecturer at the Friedrich Schiller University Jena.
Co-Lead
Dr. Joachim Rother
Dr. Joachim Rother
Project Manager
Dr. Joachim Rother is Project Manager in the Upgrade Democracy Team at Bertelsmann Stiftung and responsible for the Reinhard Mohn Award 2024. Prior to this position, Joachim was in charge of the Israel portfolio of Bertelsmann Stiftung, where he focused on fostering the German-Israeli relationship on a cultural, economic and political level. Joachim studied History, English and Social Studies at the University of Bamberg and holds a PhD in Crusade Studies. Prior to his work at Bertelsmann Stiftung, he served as deputy director of the Konrad-Adenauer Foundation (KAS) in Jerusalem, Israel. Joachim is alumnus of the KAS PhD scholarship program, The German Historical Institute (GHI) in Washington D.C. and of the Jerusalem Institute of the Goerres Gesellschaft.
Project Manager
