The Digital Agora Fights Back: Building Disinformation Resilience One Initiative at a Time

Abstract

Countering disinformation and challenging ideologically divisive social media tactics to protect electoral integrity requires innovative digitally driven changes within the public sphere. While there is growing scholarly interest in exploring novel ways of countering mis- and disinformation, research examining specific initiatives remains scarce. This article provides in-depth qualitative case studies of two successful collaborative civil society initiatives in the digital agora that used digital media to counter disinformation: (1) Comprova during Brazil’s presidential election and (2) the Transparent Referendum Initiative in Ireland’s 8th Amendment Referendum. As these cases demonstrate, fact-checking and debunking initiatives benefited from crowdsourcing. Crowdsourcing allowed these initiatives to counter disinformation while simultaneously building more knowledgeable, engaged, and empowered communities.