Disinformation Training for Librarians from The Ferret

Category: Blog

The Ferret, alongside CILIPS and Young Scot, is working on a new project to help empower young Scots to identify and challenge disinformation online, backed by the National Lottery Fund.

We are providing training for librarians, co-designed by young people across the country, enabling them to better engage with those at significant risk from disinformation online.

We know that young people are bombarded with false information from an early age online, particularly through social media. This can have negative consequences on trust, self esteem, mental and physical health, and can fuel radicalization. Recent statistics from Ipsos UK found 77 per cent of 16 to 34-year-olds find that fake news is prevalent in online news from influencers, while a US survey revealed that teens were more likely to believe online conspiracies compared with adults.

Our project aims to tackle this through a series of sessions and online tools created alongside young people. Experts from The Ferret’s fact-checking arm, Ferret Fact Service, will deliver training to librarians and information workers informed by the experiences of these groups.

This is being rolled out in a series of collaborative workshops with librarians in different settings across the country, empowering them to deliver training sessions to young people themselves.

To express an interest in this free training, please click here to access the form.