Written evidence submitted by M C McGrath • I am the founding director of Transparency Toolkit, a non-profit organization based in the United States that helps journalists and human rights groups collect, analyze, and understand data online, including...
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Written evidence submitted by M C McGrath • I am the founding director of Transparency Toolkit, a non-profit organization based in the United States that helps journalists and human rights groups collect, analyze, and understand data online, including social media data. • One under-discussed issue is that accusations of fake news themselves are often based on exaggerations, inaccurate data, and sloppy analysis. Just like other forms of disinformation, when mistaken allegations of fake news are accepted as fact, they risk misleading the public and can feed a dangerous cycle of self-reinforcing circular reasoning that needlessly worsens political divides. • On December 19th, 2017, David Alandete from El País, Francisco de Borja Lasheras from the European Council on Foreign Relations, and Mira Milosevich-Juaristi from Elcano Royal Institute presented evidence to this Committee about disinformation on social media during the referendum in Catalonia [10]. • I scrutinized their testimony, al
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