AI-based Disinformation Indicator for Hamburg Schools

AI-based Disinformation Indicator for Hamburg Schools

The "AI-based Disinformation Indicator for Hamburg Schools" project addresses the growing challenge of online disinformation and aims to counteract it through education. In collaboration with FaktenKontor GmbH and the Hub of Computing and Data Science (HCDS) at the University of Hamburg, this initiative seeks to strengthen students' resilience against disinformation by providing current, relevant examples of false information for use in the classroom.

Project Overview

In today's fast-paced digital world, traditional, static teaching materials struggle to keep up with the dynamic nature of online disinformation. This project addresses this challenge by developing an AI-based disinformation indicator that enables teachers to easily incorporate up-to-date, real-world examples of disinformation into their lessons. This contributes to media literacy education in Hamburg schools.

Key Features of the Project:

1. Real-time Detection of Disinformation: The core of the project is the development of a model to identify potential disinformation narratives from social media content. This will be done in short cycles to ensure that the most current topics are prepared for schools. The system uses data from social networks to detect viral disinformation posts, allowing teachers to access relevant, real-world examples that are engaging and understandable for students.
   
   
2. Enhancing Relevance in the Classroom: By preparing and providing these up-to-date disinformation examples for the PGW (Politics/Society/Economics) curriculum in Hamburg, teachers are equipped with a practical tool to foster media literacy. Students learn to better understand the emotional and manipulative elements of disinformation within the safe environment of the classroom.
   
   
3. Contributing to Strengthening Democracy Education: This project contributes to building democratic resilience by equipping students with the critical skills needed to evaluate online content. By improving media literacy, the project strengthens the foundation of a democratic society by enhancing the stability of a shared understanding of reality.
   With this project, we aim to contribute to democracy education and the development of media literacy, in line with the "#UpdateHamburg 2024 – Mit Innovationen gemeinsam für eine lebenswerte Stadt " program.

Project Partners:

Faktenkontor GmbH
Jörg Forthmann

HCDS
Dr. Martin Semmann
Dr. Seid Muhie Yimam
Tim Fischer

Funding: The project is supported by the Hamburgische Investitions- und Förderbank (IFB) through the " PROFI Impuls Programm zur Förderung des Innovationsökosystems und innovativer Lösungen in Hamburg " and the associated call for proposals "#UpdateHamburg 2024 – Mit Innovationen gemeinsam für eine lebenswerte Stadt".