How to keep fake news out of private online spaces?







To preserve their privacy people are retreating to closed and trusted online communities to get and share information
Many people prefer the intimacy of communicating one-on-one or with just a few friends. People are more cautious of having a permanent record of what they've shared. ๐Ÿ”—






Problem

๐Ÿ”’ Reinforced privacy features on groups
+
๐Ÿ‘ Participantโ€™s trust in these spaces
= ๐Ÿ˜ฑ Disinformation spreads like wildfire without platform oversight






User Opportunity

Moderators are (often) volunteers who are personally motivated to build online communities

They are involved with the day-to-day activities of the group and have the power to direct the conversations.





Highly structured in approach

Some mods rely on rules and structure for group members to consider before posting, they encourage a โ€œsafe environment.โ€
Leverage network to reduce disinfo

They work together to inform one another on what is happening in one region so that others can take action in the event that things spread.
Use ad-hoc tools to do their work

Some mods feel fundamentally ignored by their primary platform. They donโ€™t currently have tools to help them ban fake accounts or predict threats.







โšก๏ธ
Some speculative design solutions inspired by cross functional brainstorms to empower group moderators to prevent, identify disinformation and take action against it
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Rule Builder


Building rules for a group is time consuming and laborious. With this tool the admin can leverage common rules and systems to keep their group in line. These rules will also be bound to technology to help them detect and enforce rule breaking.

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Storm Watcher


Storm watcher analyzes trends in disinformation and warns users if they or their communities become vulnerable to it. It also helps them prepare to confront new disinformation with actionable tips and recommendations.

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Group Health Check


Uses the groups rules and other platform level inputs to scrub the content and membership attributes of a group and provides a health card with tangible steps for moderators to improve their information and membership ecosystem within the group.

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Context Everywhere


Understand the provenance and authenticity of the content (media+text) shared in your groups.

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Untroll


Uses the groups rules and other platform level inputs to scrub the content and membership attributes of a group and provides a health card with tangible steps for moderators to improve their information and membership ecosystem within the group.

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