This year, MisinfoCon London will focus on the challenges that misinformation raises for civil society in three areas: elections, media literacy, and algorithmic society. We invite the policy, academic, research and technology community to join us in learning about current projects and initiatives and brainstorm practical applications or recommendations related to these topics.

• Misinformation and elections: Whether due to social media echo chambers or direct cyber attacks, the role of misinformation and disinformation has had a disturbing presence in elections around the world. Concerns around these phenomena and their possible influence have risen sharply in the EU contexts in recent years. Recognizing this as a significant issue, significant outstanding questions include:
  • What does it mean to observe misinformation and disinformation in the framework of obligations for a democratic election? 
  • When does misinformation or disinformation undermine the integrity of the electoral process?
• Misinformation and the the algorithmic society:  The algorithmic society has been defined as “a society organized around social and economic decision-making by algorithms, robots, and AI agents.” It requires data, which can be misleading on its own. This challenge is further complicated by misinformation and disinformation. Given increasing centrality and importance of data for economies and societies, what are the issues we need to be aware of in terms of shaping future developments? What current initiatives are helping understand these complicated issues better?
• Misinformation and media literacy: While detection and prevention of future large-scale manipulation efforts is critical, so too are media literacy efforts related to the general inoculation of the public to misinformation campaigns. Finland, recently deemed as the most resilient to disinformation according to the Open Society Institute’s Media Literacy Index, has been held up as a model for its multi-level approach to media literacy education. What are the various ways that media literacy efforts are addressing the challenge of misinformation, and how can we know when they are successful? 

The day will be divided into two parts:

• Morning lightning talks around the three topic areas and afternoon breakout sessions into workshops (designed/run by Mozilla); and 
• Roundtables that focus on connecting and sharing among participants in the three areas.  Opportunities for “unconferenced” roundtables will also be available.