Product Overview: Credibility Coalition
The Credibility Coalition (CredCo) is a non-profit initiative dedicated to addressing the complex issue of misinformation and enhancing the credibility of online information. Here’s an overview of what CredCo does and its key features and functionality:
Mission and Objective
CredCo serves as a nexus for interdisciplinary collaborations aimed at improving information ecosystems and media literacy. The coalition brings together technologists, journalists, academics, policymakers, and other stakeholders to develop comprehensive solutions to the problem of misinformation.
Key Features and Functionality
Community Building and Capacity Increase
- CredCo fosters a global community through regular events, meetups, and gatherings where diverse groups discuss content credibility and solutions to misinformation. This helps increase the capacity of non-profit organizations, industries, governments, and individuals to identify credible information online.
Collaborative Inquiry and Incubation
- The coalition employs an incubation model that provides meeting spaces, community infrastructure, networking, and financial support for travel and other expenses. This model supports cross-disciplinary working groups that advance their own inquiries in response to guiding questions related to misinformation and news verification.
Support for Research
- CredCo engages in and supports collaborative research through various activities, including data collection and annotation, exploratory research projects, and the development of tools like CredCatalog. CredCatalog is a comprehensive directory of organizations and initiatives active in the information credibility space.
Advancement of Standards
- The coalition advances the development of credibility standards by defining indicators or signals that can be used in machine approaches to reduce misinformation. This includes administering microgrants to test these credibility signals and indicators, and collaborating with external projects such as CredWeb, a common specification for credibility signals aligned with the W3C.
Working Groups
- CredCo operates several working groups that are member-driven and focused on specific themes such as the UX of credible content, health misinformation, and credibility literacy. These groups meet regularly, often online, to develop practical solutions and address various aspects of misinformation.
Indicator Development and Microgrants
- The research community within CredCo develops definitions for indicators that can factor into reducing misinformation or promoting online information quality. Microgrants are provided to test these indicators, encouraging recipients to offer their results for peer review.
Partnerships and Funding
- CredCo is supported by major initiatives including the Google News Initiative, Knight Foundation, Mozilla, and partnerships with organizations like Twitter, the Associated Press, Snopes, and Global Voices. This diverse funding and partnership base ensures a holistic and well-rounded approach to addressing misinformation.
Holistic Approach
- The coalition emphasizes a holistic approach that includes reputation systems, fact-checking, media literacy, revenue models, and public feedback to address the health of the information ecosystem. This comprehensive strategy is crucial for tackling the pervasive issue of misinformation effectively.
In summary, the Credibility Coalition is a robust platform that leverages community engagement, collaborative research, and the development of standards to enhance the credibility of online information. Its multifaceted approach and diverse partnerships make it a leading initiative in the fight against misinformation.