The Honourable Pascale St–Onge, Minister of Canadian Heritage, announces funding for the Université de Montréal’s project to provide tools for Canadians to detect misinformation
MONTRÉAL, July 29, 2024 /CNW/ – Discerning fact from fiction in our online world has become an increasingly difficult problem. However, with the growing sophistication of online misinformation, it can be challenging to trust what you read online.
The Honourable Pascale St–Onge, Minister of Canadian Heritage, announced funding to the Université de Montréal for their project to combat online misinformation. This project will develop a website and a web-browser extension dedicated to detecting misinformation.
The Université de Montréal’s project will use one of the latest artificial intelligence tools, large language models, to detect and counteract misinformation narratives prevalent online in Canada. Designed to be comprehensive, user-friendly and context-aware, this mechanism will be capable of detecting misinformation across languages, modalities (text, audio, video, images), and sources. This technology will help implement effective behavioral nudges to mitigate the proliferation of “fake news” stories in online communities; it will be integrated into a website and browser extension interface, alerting users to potential misinformation to reduce their likelihood of sharing this content. This misinformation detection tool should ultimately enhance public knowledge, media integrity and democratic resilience by enabling users to quickly verify online content, which will improve their ability to judge information quality.
The Government of Canada is providing $292,675 for this project through the Digital Citizen Contribution Program.
Quotes
“The challenge of navigating for reliable information online and on social media only keeps getting more difficult. Canadians deserve better. Thriving democracies require informed citizenry, and Canadians deserve the right to trust the information they need to inform their choices. That’s why projects like this one play such a vital role in helping build and maintain that trust in Canadians.”
—The Honourable Pascale St–Onge, Minister of Canadian Heritage
“The prevalence of social media platforms in our daily lives has profoundly affected how Canadians interact with their government, the media, civil society organizations and each other. While these new platforms have empowered citizens to participate in public debate, they have also facilitated the spread of false information. Through this funding, we are supporting democratic resilience by providing Canadians with tools to verify online content, thereby strengthening their ability to assess the quality of information they come across online.”
—The Honourable Dominic LeBlanc, Minister of Public Safety, Democratic Institutions and Intergovernmental Affairs
Quick Facts
The Digital Citizen Initiative (DCI) supports Canadian researchers and civil society organizations that promote a healthy information ecosystem and help Canadians and the government understand online disinformation and its impact on Canadian society. The initiative supports the goal of building a base of evidence to identify potential action and develop future policy.
The Digital Citizen Contribution Program supports DCI priorities by investing in research and citizen-focused activities. The program aims to support democracy and social inclusion in Canada by enhancing and supporting efforts to counter online disinformation and other online threats.
In February 2024, the Government of Canada tabled the Online Harms Act, which seeks to create stronger online protection for children and better safeguard everyone in Canada from online hate and other types of harmful content.
Associated Links
Digital Citizen Contribution Program
Proposed Bill to address Online Harms
SOURCE Canadian Heritage
