The Honourable Pascale St–Onge, Minister of Canadian Heritage,
announces funding for the Université de Montréal's project to
provide tools for Canadians to detect misinformation
MONTRÉAL, July 29,
2024 /CNW/ - Discerning fact from fiction in our
online world has become an increasingly difficult problem. However,
with the growing sophistication of online misinformation, it can be
challenging to trust what you read online.
The Honourable Pascale St–Onge, Minister of Canadian Heritage,
announced funding to the Université de Montréal for their project
to combat online misinformation. This project will develop a
website and a web-browser extension dedicated to detecting
misinformation.
The Université de Montréal's project will use one of the latest
artificial intelligence tools, large language models, to detect and
counteract misinformation narratives prevalent online in
Canada. Designed to be
comprehensive, user-friendly and context-aware, this mechanism will
be capable of detecting misinformation across languages, modalities
(text, audio, video, images), and sources. This technology will
help implement effective behavioral nudges to mitigate the
proliferation of "fake news" stories in online communities; it will
be integrated into a website and browser extension interface,
alerting users to potential misinformation to reduce their
likelihood of sharing this content. This misinformation detection
tool should ultimately enhance public knowledge, media integrity
and democratic resilience by enabling users to quickly verify
online content, which will improve their ability to judge
information quality.
The Government of Canada is
providing $292,675 for this project
through the Digital Citizen Contribution Program.
Quotes
"The challenge of navigating for reliable information online and
on social media only keeps getting more difficult. Canadians
deserve better. Thriving democracies require informed citizenry,
and Canadians deserve the right to trust the information they need
to inform their choices. That's why projects like this one play
such a vital role in helping build and maintain that trust in
Canadians."
—The Honourable Pascale St–Onge, Minister of Canadian
Heritage
"The prevalence of social media platforms in our daily lives has
profoundly affected how Canadians interact with their government,
the media, civil society organizations and each other. While these
new platforms have empowered citizens to participate in public
debate, they have also facilitated the spread of false information.
Through this funding, we are supporting democratic resilience by
providing Canadians with tools to verify online content, thereby
strengthening their ability to assess the quality of information
they come across online."
—The Honourable Dominic LeBlanc, Minister of Public Safety,
Democratic Institutions and Intergovernmental Affairs
Quick Facts
The Digital Citizen Initiative (DCI) supports Canadian
researchers and civil society organizations that promote a healthy
information ecosystem and help Canadians and the government
understand online disinformation and its impact on Canadian
society. The initiative supports the goal of building a base of
evidence to identify potential action and develop future
policy.
The Digital Citizen Contribution Program supports DCI priorities
by investing in research and citizen-focused activities. The
program aims to support democracy and social inclusion in
Canada by enhancing and supporting
efforts to counter online disinformation and other online
threats.
In February 2024, the Government
of Canada tabled the Online
Harms Act, which seeks to create stronger online protection for
children and better safeguard everyone in Canada from online hate and other types of
harmful content.
Associated Links
Digital Citizen Contribution Program
Proposed Bill to address Online Harms
SOURCE Canadian Heritage