Check First

🇵🇹 Let's meet in Lisbon! Our CEO Guillaume Kuster will be speaking at the upcoming European Media & Information Fund (EMIF) Summer Conference on 15-16 July in Portugal! #EMIFund is supporting our CrossOver Finland project with Faktabaari (FactBar). Guillaume's presentation will cover the findings from our research, including #TheTikTokEffect, our latest focus report (🔎https://lnkd.in/ejxTXQrQ) Looking forward to connecting with the community. Hope to see you there! 🗣️"Two sides of the same coin: algorithmic accountability and user empowerment" 📆 Tuesday, 16 July 🕰️ 9:45 - 11:15 More details here: https://lnkd.in/eiuwMgSe

It turns out TikTok's recommendation algorithm has a dark side - our new report found that the platform was promoting misogyny and stereotypes ahead of Finland's 2024 European elections. 📝 Our new report, The TikTok Effect, can be found here: https://lnkd.in/eFZxEeHz #TheTikTokeffect #CrossOver #CrossOverFinland #algorithm Check First Faktabaari (FactBar)

Exciting projects abound at CheckFirst! We're looking forward to sharing our latest work on FIMI & disinformation. Here's a sneak peek: 👺As many of you know, on 4 June we published our latest investigation, Operation Overload, with the support of Reset & 20 fact-checking organisations. (📝 https://lnkd.in/e94eBMvx). We unveiled a vast, international, multi-layered disinformation campaign targeting fact-checkers and journalists - the aim being to distract them with dubious content in the hope that they'd check something completely fabricated. In a webinar with EU DisinfoLab, our CEO Guillaume Kuster tells us more about the methodology and answers a burning question: how many journalists actually "fell" for it? You can watch the video here: https://lnkd.in/gS9G96nz. Thank you Alexandre Alaphilippe for hosting this webinar 🙌🏼 🕰️ It's not every day that we invite you to an event in the middle of the night, but that's the case for our upcoming workshop at leHACK. Our CTO Amaury will be presenting the ObSINT Guidelines, created with a collective including EU DisinfoLab, Digital Forensic Research Lab (DFRLab), OSINT Curious, Centre for Information Resilience, OpenFacto and Logically. The guidelines aim to provide a framework for OSINT investigations. Join us on 7 July from 00:30-02:00 at the Cité des sciences et de l'industrie in Paris. Get you ticket here: https://lnkd.in/eteg5YPN 🗓️ In October, we're proud to take part in the EU DisinfoLab conference, a reference in our field. Our co-founder Amaury will join experts from the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH and the Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue (HD) for the session "Community-driven change: collaborative efforts from civil society". We're eager to discuss the sense of community that underpins CheckFirst's values - because we firmly believe that collaboration is the key to building a fairer digital landscape. https://lnkd.in/eZ9-R5iP 👋🏼 Many of our recent investigations have been possible thanks to the collaborative work with partners such as Mozilla, Reset Tech, Faktabaari (FactBar) and AI Forensics. See all our latest projects here: https://lnkd.in/ebSriyx7 Interested in algorithm analysis, DSA, monitoring transparency and accountability of big tech platforms ? Make sure you follow us on our social media accounts: 
 🔎 https://x.com/CheckFirstHQ - https://lnkd.in/eS8hHcCZ - @[email protected] 📬 https://lnkd.in/e5iJG39j #FIMI #OperationOverload #algorithms #DSA #transparency #leHACK #OSINT #disinformation #Disinfo2024

Our next online event this Thursday will discuss "Hack-checking," e.g., when malicious actors beg fact-checkers to reveal their disinformation. With Guillaume Kuster from Check First, we'll dive into Operation Overload, a Doppelganger side operation that targets journalists and fact-checkers directly on social media and by email. This leaves them with a powerful dilemma: Should they fact-check all disinformation, risking giving more visibility and audience to largely unseen content? Register now for this thought-provoking session: https://lnkd.in/edZiZiSK

🗣️ "Capturing vectors of direct dissemination, such as email, is inherently more challenging than other types of activity, but it can provide critical information not only about how content is being promoted but also about the intended audience." Here is what Alden Wahlstrom, Principal Analyst at Mandiant (part of Google Cloud) says about our #OperationOverload investigation. 🌍 This multi-layered & global disinformation operation is (still) targeting fact-checkers & media, via emails and social media mentions, asking them to "please check" a false information about Ukraine, France and Germany in particular. 📆 🗣️ On 20 June, our CEO Guillaume Kuster will discuss this research, the targets of the operation and our methodology with Alexandre Alaphilippe of EU DisinfoLab. 🚀 Have a question about Operation Overload? Sign up to join us! https://lnkd.in/edZiZiSK

Yesterday both the European Parliament and the European Commission took a strong stance against disinformation in the run-up to the European elections. Their press releases highlighted their deep concern about the many past and ongoing manipulation attempts revealed by the fact-checking community like the Doppelgänger campaign exposed by EU DisinfoLab. Notably, both the EP and the EC specifically cited our most recent work, Operation Overload (🔎 https://lnkd.in/e94eBMvx) On 4 June, with the invaluable support of Reset and over 20 fact-checking organisations, we published this investigation, shedding light on this multi-layered disinformation campaign. Operation Overload is a large-scale, multi-country operation targeting over 800 organisations with nearly 2,400 tweets. We're committed to helping dismantle the fake news environment that these malicious campaigns seek to create, with the ultimate goal of dividing our societies. Collaboration is key. #OperationOverload

"Please check this." You may have received these emails or mentions on X. You may have been targeted by Operation Overload, the multi-layered, multi-country disinformation campaign we're revealing today. With the support of Reset & 20 fact-checking organisations, we've been able to show that over 800 organisations were targeted by nearly 2400 tweets. Over 200 targeted emails were sent to newsrooms across Europe and beyond. Our investigation aims to dismantle the fake news environment created by the perpetrators. 🔎 Read more about #OperationOverload & the techniques used to create a false sense of omnipresence of this manipulated content online: https://lnkd.in/e94eBMvx ✨ Dr. Hannes Mareen IDLab (UGent - UAntwerpen - imec) UGent COM-PRESS EU DisinfoLab AAP Bufale.net Claudio Michelizza Butac CORRECTIV Detector Media Dogrula European Fact-Checking Standards Network (EFCSN) EFE Faktabaari (FactBar) Faktisk.no Gwara Media Källkritik Byrån Lakmusz Les vérificateurs Pravda Raskrikavanje Re:Baltica TjekDet #FIMI #disinformation

🚨 New Investigation Findings From May 1 to May 27, 2024, Meta approved 275 pro-Russian propaganda ads without the required political disclaimers, reaching over 3 million accounts across Italy, Germany, France, and Poland. These ads, disseminated just weeks ahead of the EU Parliament elections, pose significant risks to civic discourse and electoral integrity. Despite the European Commission’s guidelines under the Digital Services Act (DSA) aimed at mitigating online election-related risks, these findings reveal critical vulnerabilities in Meta's ad moderation systems. Prior AI Forensics investigations also highlighted Meta's failure to prevent similar ads from reaching more than 40 million accounts in France and Germany between August 2023 and March 2024. The European Commission has initiated formal proceedings to investigate potential DSA violations by Meta. It is crucial for platforms to enhance their content moderation systems and for regulatory bodies to enforce stricter oversight to protect democratic processes. 📖 Read the full report here: https://lnkd.in/gEF-qQJb #DSA #EUelections #InformationIntegrity

Clear labelling of sources would avoid content confusion on Google News. Our latest report with Faktabaari (FactBar) on the CrossOver Finland project demonstrates that Google News blends articles from the news media, political parties and opinion sites without explicitly labelling them. The issue: this can lead to content confusion, making it difficult for readers to distinguish between editorial and non-editorial text, opinion pieces from factual articles. Other findings show that Google's algorithms led to misleading claims of election fraud. On TikTok, an anonymous fan account posting content favourable to the far-right candidate received significant visibility for various searched keywords during the last presidential election in Finland. 🔎 You can read the full report & comments from Google, Meta & TikTok here: https://lnkd.in/e8vaNUvk This project has been funded by European Media & Information Fund (EMIF). EMIF is managed by the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation.

📬 Our May newsletter is out! It includes details about our work with the Mozilla Foundation, a #FacebookHustles update, and more. 🔎 https://lnkd.in/edxqtvE9