Tohatoha Ramps Up Counter-misinformation Training

AUCKLAND, 18 March 2022 – With misinformation fuelling protests and disruptions around the globe, a new programme to tackle the spread of that misinformation is now getting underway with school librarians across New Zealand.

The counter-misinformation initiative ‘A Bit Sus’, launched late last year by the School Library Association of NZ Aotearoa (SLANZA) in partnership with Tohatoha, has begun training the first intake of 15 librarians on best practices for supporting youth and schools in countering misinformation and preventing its spread.

The initiative, funded through grants from the NZ Libraries Partnership Programme, InternetNZ and the US embassy in New Zealand, is now also adding an exciting new element to the programme – an online ‘escape room’ game activity developed by the University of Washington called ‘The Euphorigen Investigation’.

Chris Coward, Senior Principal Research Scientist at University of Washington and project lead for the escape room, says the activity was designed to have participants personally experience various misinformation tactics and so realise their own vulnerabilities.

“Through the Euphorigen Investigation experience, participants can reflect on their own social media behaviours and become more resilient when encountering misinformation," he says.

Tohatoha CEO, Mandy Henk, says the escape room’s appeal for the ‘A Bit Sus’ programme was its capability for improving young people’s awareness of the spread of misinformation through interactive puzzles that address key issues such as misleading data, deepfake images and videos, and social media bots.

“With the spread of COVID-19 impacting communities across New Zealand, we wanted to be able to offer an activity that would be as engaging and fun for students as the physical travelling exhibit we were initially planning for the ‘A Bit Sus’ programme,” she says.

“We are very pleased to be partnering with the University of Washington in bringing this escape room activity to Kiwi communities, and are looking forward to trialling and adapting it for our local context.”

SLANZA president, Sasha Eastwood-Bennit, says her organisation is delighted to be working in collaboration with Tohatoha on the ‘A Bit Sus’ programme.

“It’s exciting to be delivering such timely and relevant professional development for librarians around countering misinformation,” she says.

“Training our librarians in using the excellent new escape room resource to actively engage students and help them identify and combat misinformation will only further enhance the effectiveness of the programme.”

For more information on SLANZA, visit http://www.slanza.org.nz/

For more information on Tohatoha and its work in New Zealand, visit https://tohatoha.nz

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