Since its inception in 2018 as part of the Democracy Program’s technical leadership on democracy and elections, the Digital Threats to Democracy initiative has developed tools and methodologies to assess a range of issues in the online/digital information ecosystem related to democracy, elections, and broader political processes. Beginning in 2020, the Digital Threats team has piloted various tools and approaches to establish a foundation for continued Â鶹´«Ã½ thought leadership in this area. It has worked to identify and mitigate online threats to democracy, including mis/disinformation, hate speech, online harassment, information operations, and dark political advertising.
Digital Threats has updated the Democracy Program’s 2012 Handbook on Safeguarding Electoral Technology. The new edition is designed to address changes over the last decade, such as mis/ disinformation, accessibility for people with disabilities, data privacy, and more. While the primary focus is on approaches for independent verification and scrutiny of election technologies throughout the electoral process, the handbook also examines how technologies can expand access to voting, including for persons with disabilities and minority communities.
Digital Threats leads the development of digital safety curriculum, which provides women in politics and civil society leaders with digital tools to respond appropriately to rapidly evolving forms of online violence and abuse. Digital Threats will explore additional avenues to make the program more valuable to aspiring political leaders as well as translate the materials into additional languages.
Digital Threats developed educational materials for a media literacy curriculum — known as DIGIT — in partnership with Emory University. The DIGIT curriculum educates adults about how to consume and share online information responsibly. The team has collaborated with various universities (Syracuse University, Georgia Tech, the University of Georgia, Emory University, the United States Air Force Academy, and community colleges) and aligned institutions and organizations, such as the National Association of Media Literacy Education, to test the curriculum and has plans to translate it into additional languages..
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