Exchange, cooperation and networking against disinformation: Under this premise, CORRECTIV and GADMO organized their first fact-checking conference on Friday, September 15, as part of the new b° future festival in Bonn. Around 40 participants accepted the invitation to the University of Bonn to discuss important topics related to disinformation, artificial intelligence, regulation and media literacy, including fact checkers, media professionals, researchers and experts from Germany, Austria and Switzerland.
The event was held as a bar camp. Participants suggested topics at the beginning and then voted on which they would prefer to discuss in small groups. The result: Over three rounds, three parallel sessions each discussed AI applications, ways to improve German-language networking of the fact-checking scene, mental health in the workplace, troll factories, the state of research around disinformation and social media monitoring. A spontaneously assembled panel on the future of fact checking rounded out the event.
“The fact-checking symposium showed the enormous expertise that exists around the topic of fact-checking and disinformation in the German-speaking area. We are pleased that the bar camp format has proven itself as an impetus for active exchange and that participants were able to network and critically engage in a confidential setting,” says Sophie Timmermann, Deputy Director of CORRECTIV.Faktencheck and co-organizer of the conference.
