The EU elections, Europe Day, Victory Day and Eurovision are approaching – and so are the opportunities for spreading false information and fomenting polarization. That’s why Faktabari, in cooperation with its NORDIS partners, is organizing a free webinar for journalists on the EU elections and election interference on May 3.

The webinar will be held on International Press Freedom Day from 12:15 to 15:30. The webinar to be held on May 3 has an interesting coverage of both domestic and Nordic experts. All Finnish journalists and journalist students who want to update their knowledge about EU elections, disinformation and fact-checking tools are welcome to the lines.

Also MediaFutures Ph.D candidate Sohail Khan is present and will present his research on deep fake detection as well as NORDIS.2, a project he works on together with UiB-infomedia associate professor Duc-Tien Dang-Nguyen.

Between 2022 and 2023, the Norwegian fact-checking organization played a crucial role in providing guidance to MediaFutures’ PhD candidate, Sohail Ahmed Khan, as he developed two prototypes: an image classifier and a language detector. Both tools have earned great acclaim among fact checkers and journalists, including those operating in war-torn Ukraine. One of the tools Sohail will showcase at the webinar is the tank classifier.

The event is hosted and held mainly in Finnish. Sohail Ahmed Khan will speak in English.

Program:
12.15–12.30
Opening Words
Pipsa Havula & Joonas Pörsti/ Faktabaari

12.30–13.00
What kind of disinformation narratives circulate about the EU? What can we learn from the Eurovision Song Contest?
Andreas Önnerfors/ Director of Fact-Checking Program at Sweden’s Fojo Institute

13.00–13.30
What is important for journalists to know before the EU elections?
Niina Saloranta/ Press Officer at the European Parliament’s Finland Office. Saloranta provides an overview of the EU institutions, how decision-making works, what happens before and after the elections, and gives examples of journalists’ sources of information.

13.30–13.50
How to find EU news.
Hannele Muilu/ Yle’s Brussels Correspondent

13.50–14.00
Break

14.00–14.15
What is EFCSN? How is the European fact-checking network preparing for the elections?
Thomas Hedin/ Managing Editor at Tjekdet and Board Member of EFCSN

14.15–14:35
AI tools for journalists.
Sohail Ahmed Khan/ PhD Candidate at the Department of Information Science and Media Studies, University of Bergen. The University of Bergen/MediaFutures has developed AI tools in collaboration with the Norwegian fact-checking organization Faktisk to assist journalists. Sohail Ahmed Khan presents them.

14.35–14:55
Insights into the Digivaalivahti project by Faktabaari and CheckFirst and their findings so far.
Pipsa Havula & Guillaume Kuster

14:55–15:30
Summary of the most important fact-checking tools currently available
Katja Lehtisaari, University Lecturer in Journalism at Tampere University, discusses fact-checking courses for journalism students and future collaboration within the NORDIS project framework.
Future plans

The event concludes at 15:30.

To register for the webinar, please follow the link.