WIREDGOV

Ahead of the forthcoming General Election, we’re working with social enterprise Shout Out UK and the Electoral Commission to help first-time and younger voters identify and address political misinformation and disinformation.

The aim of the ‘Dismiss’ campaign is to give people the skills to navigate the information they might see online ahead of the election, so they can make informed decisions about how they vote. It will help to increase their awareness of existing and emerging misinformation / disinformation tactics, as well as improving their ability to combat them.

The campaign highlights five main areas that voters should be aware of:

• Disinformation / misinformation
• Harmful deep fake images, audio and video
• Bot accounts
• Echo chambers
• Data manipulation

The campaign highlights types of content that people might encounter online which fall into these categories. It sets out how this content can be harmful, and explains how people can identify and avoid falling victim to them.

You can take a look at the campaign on X, Instagram, TikTok and YouTube.

Shout Out UK is a social enterprise whose aim is to help make sure people understand how governments function through political literacy, and works to protect them from disinformation and misinformation through media literacy. It has previously delivered digital awareness campaigns targeting marginalised and under-represented communities, including young people.

Ofcom has an existing duty to promote media literacy, and also has new duties in this area under the Online Safety Act, which relate to ‘content of democratic importance’ and misinformation / disinformation.