AFP and Google France announced on Monday the launch of a program to fight against disinformation, dubbed “
Objectif Desinfox
”, with a view to the presidential and legislative elections.
"
This training and collaboration program, intended for French editorial staff, will be based on an alliance of the media and fact-checking organizations interested in the fight against disinformation
", according to the joint
press
release of the two companies.
This alliance is based on five main pillars.
First, thematic online training from mid-January for all media and fact-checking organizations that are members of the alliance, to teach journalists about digital investigation (fight against cyberbullying, improvement of monitoring processes , etc).
Second, the creation of a collaborative platform to exchange between members of the alliance which will include a system for reporting false or misleading content to the general public and which will feed all the partner editorial staff.
Third, monthly thematic meetings hosted by AFP, to which all members will be invited, with the participation of speakers and external experts (researchers, sociologists, etc.).
Fourth, the provision of AFP political fact-checking content for alliance members on the AFP Factuel site and on the “
AFP Fact Check
”
YouTube channel
.
Fifth, an accompaniment and support program for factchecks' editorial staff, members of the alliance in the creation and production of their own content.
This content will benefit from the “
Objectif Desinfox
”
label
and AFP will produce videos of the best productions.
"
The media coalition aims to unite the ranks of actors in the fight against disinformation in the perspective (...) of the presidential election
," said AFP CEO Fabrice Fries, quoted in the press release.
"
Each year, Google trains thousands of journalists in digital tools, and this partnership with AFP makes it possible to amplify this training,
" said Sébastien Missoffe, general manager of Google in France.
AFP is the world's leading fact-checking production network with more than 120 journalists working in 24 languages in 85 countries.