¶ Trusted News Initiative
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The Trusted News Initiative (TNI) is an international alliance of news media, social media and technology corporations working to identify and combat so-called "disinformation" about national elections, the COVID-19 pandemic and COVID-19 vaccines. TNI was founded by Jessica Cecil, a leadership figure at the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) who also serves as the initiative's director.[1][2]
¶ History
In June 2019, the BBC convened the Trusted News Summit, bringing together leaders of many of the world's largest news and social media companies.[3] The summit addressed concerns regarding online misinformation surrounding the 2019 Indian general election, which reportedly attracted systematic attempts to spread misinformation and "fake news" through social media.[4][5][6] Organizations that participated in the event included the European Broadcasting Union, Facebook, the Financial Times, First Draft News, Google, The Hindu, and the Wall Street Journal.[7]
This led to the launch of a "Trusted News Charter" on September 7, 2019, outlining plans to develop tools to assist industry partners in "moving quickly and collectively to undermine disinformation before it can take hold."[8] Other projects were to include an online media education campaign and disseminating information on how to vote. Additional partner organizations were announced including Agence France-Presse (AFP), CBC/Radio-Canada, Microsoft, Thomson Reuters, the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism and Twitter.[7:1]
¶ COVID-19
On March 27, 2020, the BBC announced that the TNI would extend its efforts to combatting COVID-19 misinformation around the world.[3:1][9][10] It continued to engage in information management related to elections, announcing in July 2020 that it was anticipating misinformation campaigns in advance of the 2020 United States presidential election.[11]
TNI Director Jessica Cecil delivered a presentation on developing a consensus in the "post-pandemic world" at the 2020 Paris Peace Forum. She highlighted the work of the TNI and the related Project Origin, led by Microsoft.[12]
On November 11, 2021, the Vaccine Safety Research Foundation (VSRF) published a video titled "What is the Trusted News Initiative?"[13]
At a May 2022 event hosted by the RAND Corporation, Cecil suggested that institutional efforts to counter disinformation should focus on foreign adversaries such as Russia and China, as well as domestic consumers of disinformation.[14]
On August 25, 2022, the Information Commissioner's Office in the United Kingdom ruled that communications between the BBC and members of the TNI were not subject to public disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act 2000.[15]
The TNI announced its expansion into the Asia-Pacific region in November 2022, providing new partners from the area with training in navigating disinformation with funding from the Google News Initiative.[16][17]
In January 2023, a group of plaintiffs including Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Children's Health Defense filed an antitrust lawsuit in a Texas district court against various members of the TNI.[18][19] The suit alleges that the defendants colluded to censor individuals and news outlets whose reporting on COVID-19 challenged or competed with the TNI.[20] Additional plaintiffs included various members of the Disinformation Dozen, a list created by the Center for Countering Digital Hate of the "top 12 spreaders of anti-vaccine misinformation on social media platforms."[21]
¶ Participants
Members of the Trusted News Initiative include:[22]
- Agence France-Presse (AFP)
- Associated Press (AP)
- Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC)
- British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC)
- CBC/Radio-Canada
- Dawn Pakistan
- Deutsche Presse-Agentur
- European Broadcasting Union
- Financial Times
- First Draft News
- The Hindu
- Indian Express
- Information Futures Lab at the Brown University School of Public Health
- Kompas
- Meta Platforms
- Microsoft
- Nation Media Group
- NDTV
- New York Times
- NHK
- Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism
- Special Broadcasting Service (SBS)
- Thomson Reuters
- Wall Street Journal
- Washington Post
- YouTube
¶ External links
Jessica Cecil. Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism. Retrieved September 26, 2023, from https://archive.ph/2023.09.26-010529/https://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/people/jessica-cecil ↩︎
Meet the Speaker: Jessica Cecil, BBC. BritishAmerican Business. Retrieved October 15, 2023, from https://web.archive.org/web/20231015205016/https://www.babinc.org/jessica-cecil-bbc/ ↩︎
Media Centre. (2020, March 27). Trusted News Initiative announces plans to tackle harmful Coronavirus disinformation. BBC. https://web.archive.org/web/20231015182634/https://www.bbc.com/mediacentre/latestnews/2020/coronavirus-trusted-news ↩︎ ↩︎
Purnell, N. (2019, April 1). Facebook Removes Hundreds of Fake Accounts Ahead of India Elections. Wall Street Journal. https://web.archive.org/web/20190402025115/https://www.wsj.com/articles/facebook-removes-hundreds-of-fake-accounts-ahead-of-indian-elections-11554129628 ↩︎
Goel, V., & Frenkel, S. (2019, April 1). In India Election, False Posts and Hate Speech Flummox Facebook. The New York Times. https://web.archive.org/web/20190402023743/https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/01/technology/india-elections-facebook.html ↩︎
Das, A., & Schroeder, R. (2020, March 10). Online disinformation in the run-up to the Indian 2019 election. Information, Communication & Society, 24(12), 1762–1778. https://doi.org/10.1080/1369118X.2020.1736123 ↩︎
New collaboration steps up fight against disinformation. (2019, September 27). BBC. https://web.archive.org/web/20231015182650/https://www.bbc.co.uk/mediacentre/latestnews/2019/disinformation ↩︎ ↩︎
CBC/Radio-Canada joins global charter to fight disinformation. (2019, September 9). CBC/Radio-Canada. https://web.archive.org/web/20230811013231/https://cbc.radio-canada.ca/en/media-centre/trusted-news-charter-fight-disinformation ↩︎
Fenlon, B. (2020, May 25). Canada not immune to the virus of COVID-19 conspiracies. CBC News. https://web.archive.org/web/20231011232534/https://www.cbc.ca/news/editorsblog/editors-blog-fact-checking-coronavirus-misinformation-1.5583631 ↩︎
Trusted News Initiative announces plans to tackle harmful coronavirus disinformation. (2020, March 27). CBC/Radio-Canada. https://archive.ph/2022.01.27-150311/https://cbc.radio-canada.ca/en/media-centre/trusted-news-initiative-plan-disinformation-coronavirus ↩︎
Ramachadran, N. (2020, July 13). System Set Up to Fight Fake News During U.S. Presidential Election. Variety. http://archive.today/2020.08.02-231509/https://variety.com/2020/biz/news/fake-news-us-presidential-election-1234704593/ ↩︎
Cecil, J. (2022, February 22). A new consensus for the post-COVID-19 world: Disinformation. Paris Peace Forum. http://archive.today/2022.05.30-234437/https://parispeaceforum.org/en/a-new-consensus-for-the-post-covid19-world-disinformation/ ↩︎
Vaccine Safety Research Foundation. (2021, November 11). What is the Trusted News Initiative? Odysee. http://archive.today/2021.12.11-195624/https://odysee.com/@VSRF:d/Vaccine-Safety-Research-Foundation-TNI:e ↩︎
Combating Disinformation by Bolstering Truth and Trust. (2022, May 24). RAND Corporation. https://web.archive.org/web/20231017155844/https://www.rand.org/blog/2022/05/combating-disinformation-by-bolstering-truth-and-trust.html ↩︎
Churchill, C. (2022, August 25). Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA) Decision notice – IC-185687-C4J8. Information Commissioner’s Office. https://web.archive.org/web/20231017160632/https://ico.org.uk/media/action-weve-taken/decision-notices/2022/4021536/ic-185687-c4j8.pdf ↩︎
Mar, L. (2022, November 9). Trusted News Initiative creates Asia-Pacific network. CBC/Radio-Canada. http://archive.today/2023.10.17-151751/https://cbc.radio-canada.ca/en/media-centre/trusted-news-initiative-in-asia ↩︎
Jackson, S. (2022, November 15). ABC joins the Trusted News Initiative. Australian Broadcasting Company. https://archive.ph/2023.01.26-052117/https://about.abc.net.au/press-releases/abc-joins-the-trusted-news-initiative/ ↩︎
Porterfield, C. (2023, January 13). RFK Jr. Sues BBC And Other Media Outlets Over Covid “Censorship.” Forbes. https://archive.ph/2023.07.06-215922/https://www.forbes.com/sites/carlieporterfield/2023/01/13/rfk-jr-sues-bbc-and-other-media-outlets-over-covid-censorship/?sh=33d7cf7b1508 ↩︎
Rawnsley, A. (2023, January 12). Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and His League of Extraordinary Anti-Vaxxers Sue Media Outlets Over Conspiracy “Boycott.” Rolling Stone. https://web.archive.org/web/20230705212824/https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-news/robert-f-kennedy-jr-anti-vaxxers-sue-media-outlets-over-covid-conspiracy-boycott-1234660028/ ↩︎
Agence France-Presse. (2023, January 13). Robert F. Kennedy Jr sues media outlets over misinformation initiative. France 24. https://web.archive.org/web/20231017153430/https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20230113-robert-f-kennedy-jr-sues-media-outlets-over-misinformation-initiative ↩︎
Jarry, J. (2021, March 31). A Dozen Misguided Influencers Spread Most of the Anti-Vaccination Content on Social Media. Office for Science and Society. https://archive.ph/2022.07.01-025230/https://www.mcgill.ca/oss/article/covid-19-health/dozen-misguided-influencers-spread-most-anti-vaccination-content-social-media ↩︎
Trusted News Initiative. BBC. Retrieved September 23, 2023, from https://web.archive.org/web/20230923182924/https://www.bbc.com/beyondfakenews/trusted-news-initiative/ ↩︎