PressOne.PH, an independent news organization, launched #TruthHour to stress the importance of fighting disinformation online.
Likening disinformation to living in the dark, PressOne.PH launched the initiative to cast a light on the dangers of spreading false information online. The movement coincided with the global observance of Earth Hour last March 26, Saturday.
The #TruthHour campaign continues April 2, International Fact Checking Day. PressOne.PH will continue to light up the world with facts to dispel the darkness of disinformation one fact-check story at a time.
To prove that the fight against disinformation is everybody’s business, PressOne used the yearly celebration of Earth Hour but with a twist.
While the Earth Hour celebration calls for the turning off artificial light for one hour (from 8:30 to 9:30 p.m.) as an expression of support for nature and our planet, PressOne’s #TruthHour used that dark hour to illustrate that those who consume and share information from untrustworthy sources are living in the dark. Only through the truth and facts can we dispel the darkness of disinformation.
Through its social media accounts, PressOne released a series of quote cards about the parallelism of darkness and disinformation, light and facts. The cards featured a fact-check story and the rating from PressOne’s fact-checkers. The link to the fact-check story was posted in the comments section for everyone to read.
“By playing with the analogy of darkness and disinformation, we promoted the importance of debunking disinformation in a more creative and engaging way. It’s not our usual straightforward fact-checked posts. We want something more creative and interesting to raise the public’s awareness on the importance of living under the light of truth,” Rommel Lopez, Associate Editor of PressOne.PH, said.
PressOne.PH, a member of fact-checking coalitions Tsek.ph and #FactsFirstPH, has produced several fact-check articles that debunked erroneous claims made online.
However, the independent news organization was recently the subject of a Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack that flooded its website with millions of online traffic to shut down the site.