In establishing a Bulgarian-Romanian Observatory of Digital Media (BROD), Ontotext joins a consortium of 12 partners coordinated by the GATE Institute. Their collaborative efforts aim to equip professionals in the region with better tools to detect disinformation, as well as to increase media literacy amongst citizens, offering locally adapted multilingual tools for disinformation campaigns analysis, media literacy activities, fact-checks, and media and disinformation research.
Vitosha Research EOOD (Bulgaria) hosted the meeting, during which partner organizations outlined their respective specializations and the roles they will play in the project.
For the first time, a structure is starting to be built in which anyone who has an interest in the topic of disinformation can join. These are media, academic institutions and technology companies, and people involved in media and information literacy education. The goal is to create a network for detecting and countering disinformation – said Assoc. Prof. Milena Dobreva, head of research at BROD.
Ontotext’s primary contribution will be to further enhance its publicly available graph database of debunked content, originally created in the course of WeVerify and further built upon in VERA, by adding cross-lingual search functionality to study fact-checks provided by partners in Bulgarian and Romanian. A localized dashboard with adapted faceted search and browse capabilities will be integrated within the BROD multilingual web portal, developed by partner XWiki. Our research team will also participate in the study of disinformation narratives and campaigns across Bulgaria and Romania.
If you are eager to learn more about BROD partners’ commitment to the topic of fighting disinformation and to be the first to learn about project contributions at the national and European levels, follow the consortium’s Twitter and LinkedIn channels.
This project is co-funded by the European Union’s Digital Europe programme under grant agreement No 101083730. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union. Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.
For more information, contact Doug Kimball, Chief Marketing Officer at Ontotext