CILIP is a founder-member of the Media and Information Literacy Alliance (MILA) – the cross-sector alliance founded to help people lead happier, healthier and safer lives online.

Disinformation has been a feature of conflicts throughout history. However, the Russian invasion of Ukraine has seen a significant increase in the creation and distribution of disinformation, ‘fake news’ and other misleading sources.

Our colleagues in Ukrainian libraries and information services are organising themselves to combat Russian state-backed and other forms of disinformation. We have put this page together to provide information for CILIP members wishing to support these efforts.

It should also be noted that according to Full Fact, disinformation is being used on both sides of the conflict. It is important to be conscious of this when considering how best to minimise the risks of spreading information.

STOP

Consider our own biases

It is important to be conscious of our own biases and prejudice when approaching a piece of information. Are we predisposed to believe one side over the other? In an asymmetric invasion like the situation in Ukraine, it is easy to sympathise with the victims over the aggressors, and to tend to be more ready to believe their information.

Be sceptical

The Internet has triggered a democratisation of the media – anyone can share news and information and make it look authoritative. Disinformation and fake news depend on people uncritically sharing information they find online – often targeted to them by an algorithm. The best way to avoid being a vector for fake news and disinformation is to be actively sceptical and to apply discernment to all information that comes our way.

Ask ‘how do I feel?’

A lot of disinformation is created to provoke an emotional reaction by speaking to our sense of outrage, morality or political values. Some of it is created as ‘clickbait’ while some is intended as parody or a joke. Take a moment to consider whether the information seems designed to make you angry or worried, rather than conveying the facts.

Ask ‘in whose interest’?

Balanced news reporting will focus primarily on giving you a factual account of events and allowing you to draw your own conclusions. If a source seems to be leading you to a conclusion, ask in whose interest it is for the story to be skewed in that direction.

VERIFY

Use trusted sources

There is no such thing as an entirely dispassionate or neutral source. It is always a good sign if a news outlet lets you know upfront what its point of view is! A good place to start is the library – news materials and databases made available through your local public, school, college or health library are likely to have been assessed in advance for their commitment to balance, fair reporting and their use of evidence.

Read the whole story

It is important to go beyond the headline and to read the whole of a story before sharing it. This is particularly important in today’s 24-hour news cycle, in which editorial is recycled, updated and amended throughout the day.

A recent example in Ukraine related to Ukrainian forces stationed on ‘Snake Island’ who were widely reported as having been killed by a Russian warship. Within hours, the story had been corrected to indicate that they had been captured, but many headlines remained unchanged.

Find supporting sources

Corroboration is a key element of journalism, and indeed of providing good information in all walks of life. If you are sceptical about a piece of news or information, it is helpful to seek other trusted sources which confirm what the original is saying. This is not foolproof, however – there are plenty of examples of disinformation that is supported by a wide range of apparently authoritative sources.

Apply critical judgement

As an information professional, you will know how easily images and video can be faked or manipulated. This appears to be a particular issue in the Ukrainian conflict, in which a significant amount of highly visible social media content has been proven to be fake.

These sites can help you bring a more critical eye to online media:

Read the Full Fact guide – Ukraine and beyond: How to spot misleading videos

Read the Full Fact guide – How to spot misleading images

Read the Full Fact guide – How to spot misleading headlines

CORRECT

Share better information

Once you have verified a piece of information, you can act as a ‘node’ in the network which shares and promotes it. Part of the problem is that fake news and disinformation tend to spread virally and incredibly quickly, while corrections tend to reach a smaller audience and move more slowly. You can be part of combatting fake news by helping to wash better information through the system.

Call out disinformation

Where you spot a piece of fake news or disinformation being shared – for example by friends, family or colleagues on social media platforms – don’t be afraid to call it out, but always provide a link to the information or evidence that proves it is false (such as an article from a reputable fact-checking site).

Be a trusted source

Libraries are widely trusted as sources of authoritative and impartial information (noting that no source is ever ‘neutral’). As a librarian or information professional, you can assemble information, displays, reading materials and other sources which provide a fair and balanced view on what is happening in Ukraine. This is an important service that you can provide for your users.

Educate others

As librarians and information professionals, we are ideally-placed to educate people about fake news and disinformation and to help them develop their digital, media and information literacy.

CILIP believes that media and information literacy is as essential in today’s connected world as reading literacy has been for the past century. Through the Media and Information Literacy Alliance, we are working to provide information and resources on how you can help your users develop their own resilience against fake news and disinformation.

Find information poster below and download link in pdf format.

Find out more at the Media Information Literacy Alliance (MILA).

Further resources

• The UK Government’s Resist 2 – counter-disinformation toolkit
• BBC News Reality Check (i.e. the BBC’s own fact checking service)
• The Debunking Handbook(pdf>, one of whose authors is Steve Lewandowsky
• Seven tips for spotting disinformation related to the Russia-Ukraine conflict from Stanford University
• Fake viral footage is spreading alongside the real horror in Ukraine. Here are 5 ways to spot it, an article in The Conversation, by T J Thomson, from Queensland University of Technology
• Stop Fake, a Ukrainian initiative from the Kyiv Mohyla Journalism School

Banner image: A mother and her child are feeling violence, Bucha, Kyiv Oblast, Ukraine, 4 March 2022. Photo: Oleksandr Ratushnyak / UNDP Ukraine, Source: UNDP Flickr, Attribution-NoDerivs 2.0 Generic (CC BY-ND 2.0)