Background
As part of the City of Sydney’s social cohesion program, City of Sydney collaborated with All Together Now to conduct a free workshop to educate professionals on how to recognise and deal with online hate, fake news and conspiracy theories.
The City of Sydney took a proactive approach to address the rising threats of AI misinformation by making this training accessible to the general public. This allowed individuals to enhance their skills and knowledge to tackle misinformation and disinformation, and to challenge hateful fake news and conspiracy theories.
The half-day face-to-face workshop event was successfully held on 14 March 2024, at Town Hall House in Sydney.
Our Solutions
All Together Now curated the workshop based on its existing Challenging Hateful Misinformation Training, but tailored to City of Sydney’s requirements. The timeframe of the training was reduced and the training content and resources were adapted to meet the needs of their diverse audiences in the City.
The workshop program addressed issues on how to deal with divisive and hateful narratives, ideas, stereotypes and codes from the ground up. The interactive workshop included a wide range of activity-based learning that created a safe and comfortable environment for sensitive topics to be discussed and shared among peers and facilitators. The workshop also covered relevant topics to deepen the understanding of the relationship between misinformation, racism, and other forms of hate as well as practical strategies and tools to use for day-to-day challenges.
Since the registration was made available to the general public, the tickets sold out quickly and generated high interest from various industry professionals working in the social and community sectors including youth workers, social workers, educators, counsellors, local council employees as well as solicitors and media and communication professionals. As a result, The City of Sydney increased and expanded its seat capacity to accommodate the demand.
Impact
During the registration process, City of Sydney developed a short survey to gather the participants’ expectations as to what they were looking to achieve from the training. The participants expressed an interest in building a greater awareness of these growing issues, as well as enhancing their skills and strategies to deal with misinformation. They also looked for advice, tips, approaches, tools and languages that can be used to intervene and disrupt problematic misinformation among young people and strengthen inclusion and belonging in the community.
At the end of the workshop, participants also provided their feedback about the workshop and what they have achieved and learnt from the training. Participants had a positive learning experience and described the workshop as very engaging, insightful and informative. They also learnt more about terminology, racial literacy and practical ways to engage young people as well as good strategies to use for identifying and combating misinformation, fake news and conspiracy theories. Furthermore, some participants expressed they would be interested to attend the full workshop to further enhance their skills in this space.
“It was very insightful and informative. A better understanding of how to assess different news.”
Lauren Al-Ali, City Of Sydney
SEE WHAT OUR PARTICIPANTS SAY…
It went beyond what I thought it would be about. A reaffirming of knowledge on good strategies to use when dealing with misinformation.
I really enjoyed the session. I would love to have experienced the full workshop as I understand that the workshop had to be abbreviated.
Joseph McCarthy, City of Sydney
It felt like it met my expectations and even exceeded them a bit.
I felt that I learned a lot and how to manage certain situations.
Nicole Koster, St Vincent’s Hospital
A good overview of the topic with some useful strategies. I was aware of much of the content presented but enjoyed thinking about how to employ the knowledge in practice. Works very well as a half-day course. Very knowledgeable presenters. Thanks Keith and Sukhdeep!
Julie Wilcox, ACTU
I wasn’t sure what to expect but it was very helpful at outlining strategies for identifying and combating misinformation, fake news and conspiracy theories.
Some clear ways to address misinformation and etc.
Jacquie Elvidge, City of Sydney
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