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Facebook, Mozilla, and others launch $14mn fund to support news integrity

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Facebook, Mozilla, and other tech industry leaders, nonprofits, have collaborated to launch a $14 million fund dedicated to advancing news literacy.

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The nonprofit, called the News Integrity Initiative, will be based at the City University of New York. It will run as an independent project of the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism. Other backers of this investment include the Craig Newmark Philanthropic Fund, the Ford Foundation, the Democracy Fund, the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, the Tow Foundation, AppNexus, and Betaworks.

Fake news and misinformation, often masquerading as trustworthy news and spreading on social media, has gained a lot of attention since the 2016 US presidential election.

"As part of the Facebook Journalism Project, we want to give people the tools necessary to be discerning about the information they see online,” remarked Campbell Brown, Facebook’s head of news partnership in a statement. “Improving news literacy is a global concern, and this diverse group assembled by CUNY brings together experts from around the world to work toward building more informed communities.”

The money accumulated will go to the research projects, as well as arranging meetings with experts in the industry. Currently, close to nineteen organisations and individuals have signed up to carry out research projects under this initiative. They will also host projects and research initiatives across the globe to focus on advancing news literacy.

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