On 06 May, Dr Jane Suiter and Dr Eileen Culloty (Dublin City University) gave a presentation on anti-immigrant disinformation at the United Nations HQ in New York. The event was organised by the UN Migration Agency (IOM) to highlight the implications of technology for migration policies and practices.
Other panellists included Ms. Mindy Blodgett, Senior Editor, MIT Technology Review; Dr. Natasha Iskander, Associate Professor, New York University; and Mr. Roeland de Wilde, IOM Chief of Mission, Costa Rica.
For their contribution, Dr Suiter and Dr Culloty addressed the issue of anti-immigration activism on social media by far-right actors. The presentation also included findings from a big data study of Twitter during the 2015-2016 refugee crisis. A video of the discussion is available here.
Anti-immigrant disinformation is one of the use-cases for the Provenance project, which is developing new verification-based warning system for disinformation. Provenance is funded by the European Commission (grant number 825227).
