Investigations & Digital Trust · Internship Role

MISINFORMATION RESEARCH

Track and analyse disinformation campaigns: how false stories start, spread and mutate, and who benefits. Use evidence, not opinion.

SKILLS YOU'LL WALK AWAY WITH

Fact-checkingNarrative trackingNetwork analysisMedia literacyResearch writing

PROOF-OF-WORK TASKS

8 TASKS

Start at Beginner and work up. Every task produces something real you can show: a report, a tool, a guide or a demo. Publish it on LinkedIn or GitHub as your proof of work.

Beginner

LEVEL 01

01Fact-check 5 viral WhatsApp forwards using Fact Check Explorer, BOOM or Alt News. Make a table of each claim, the verdict, the source, and how it spread.
02Learn the SIFT method (Stop, Investigate the source, Find better coverage, Trace claims) and apply it to 3 news stories.
03Create a short guide for parents and grandparents on spotting fake news in regional languages.

Intermediate

LEVEL 02

01Track one false narrative for 2 weeks across platforms: its first appearance, key amplifiers, mutations, and the fact-check response.
02Build a dataset of 100 posts on one topic, label each one (true, false, misleading, satire), and visualise how each type spreads.
03Analyse a documented campaign from the Media Manipulation Casebook and write a 1,000-word case study using its lifecycle model.

Advanced

LEVEL 03

01Publish a research report on a coordinated inauthentic behaviour pattern (bot-like accounts, copy-paste messaging), with methods, evidence and limitations.
02Build a notebook or tool that clusters near-duplicate messages in a dataset to detect copy-paste campaigns.

HAND-PICKED FREE RESOURCES

7 RESOURCES

FREE COURSE