Noticias
March, 2024 – With more than 150 participants in eight municipalities, the Disinformation Workshops for the Elderly, carried out by the Millennium Nucleus on Inequalities and Digital Opportunities, Nudos, with the support of the Millennium Institute Foundational Research on Data, culminated.
Renca, San Antonio, Olivar, Requínoa, Santa Juana and Los Cerros de Talcahuano were the communities where the workshops were held, with the participation of researchers from Nudos and the IMFD giving talks on the prevention of computer and telephone fraud and how to recognize disinformation.
“One of our main objectives in carrying out this WEP project was to contribute to the reduction of the digital divide that affects the elderly, and based on data provided by our team of researchers, we identified a problem and organized educational workshops in order to reduce some of the effects of this problem,” says Teresa Correa, alternate director of Nudos.
In Chile, 65% of the population uses social networks as a source of information according to the Digital News Report 2023 The list of platforms used for this purpose is headed by Facebook, Instagram and Whatsapp. Although most of the information circulating in these virtual spaces is true, there is a percentage of unverified content -i.e. false or doubtful- that contaminates public opinion and, in some cases, even endangers people’s safety.
“The elderly, for different reasons, are especially vulnerable to these attacks, which is why the Millennium Institute Foundational Research on Data has a line of work in this area, which seeks to provide tools that allow this group to recognize misinformation and also to know what its effects are,” says Camila Díaz Foxon, executive director of the IMFD.
These workshops are part of the NUDOS WEP project, with funding from the National Agency for Research and Development, ANID.
