In October and November 2023, workshops on disinformation for young people were held. Currently, each of us is faced with a huge amount of news coming from news portals and social media. Unfortunately, many of them are created to mislead recipients and cause information chaos. Thanks to the workshops, young people learned how to verify what they receive on the Internet every day.

Training schedule:

1. Disinformation and how to recognize it – October 2, 2023 at 10:00 – 16:00 at the Municipal Public Library. Adolf Dygański.

Bartek - workshop participant: "At the workshops we learned how to recognize false information. We took part in a quiz on disinformation and distinguished a real article from a fake one. The main task was to check the credibility of an existing article."

2. Hate speech on the Internet and how to deal with it - October 3, 2023, 10:00 – 16:00 at the Municipal Public Library. Adolf Dygański.

Marcelina - workshop participant: "First of all, we learned what fake news is and how to distinguish fact from opinion or rumor. We had the pleasure of visiting the brand24 website and discovering ways to track specific information on the Internet. During the classes, we worked in groups, among other things, we had to create a profile of a famous person only based on information found on the Internet, and in the next part, check the veracity of what we found with certain sources. The summary of the workshop was a discussion about people who are enterprising. We ended the workshop nicely with a conversation.

3. Creating credible and reliable information - November 22, 2023 at 10:00 – 16:00 in the Culture Park.

Wiktoria - workshop participant: "Workshops on creating credible and reliable information. The task was to find evidence of the falsity of given information using the previously presented stages of selection. We also played the role of creators of fake news. In groups we had to come up with a conspiracy theory and present it to the rest, yes to make them believe in our reliability. There was also a discussion about better and better ways to cheat on the Internet and the impact of artificial intelligence on our minds.

4. The role of social media during the crisis - November 21, 2023, at 10:00 – 16:00 in the Culture Park.

Patryk - workshop participant: "During the workshops, we discussed examples of online propaganda (organized trolling in the form of hate campaigns, spreading fake news, bots pretending to be real users), what to remember when consuming media in times of crisis. A very important aspect was the management of social media in times of crisis. situations, especially when hacker attacks on media accounts have recently intensified. We also learned about good practices."

Representatives of the Youth Council of the City of Starachowice and students of secondary schools from Starachowice took part in the workshops. A total of 70 people took part in the workshops.

The workshops were led by Artur Maik - soft skills and business trainer. A graduate of the Jan Kochanowski University in Kielce and international postgraduate studies in project management.

Workshop goal:
1. understanding the meaning of fake news and being able to recognize it,
2. acquiring the ability to verify information in accordance with IT methodology
3. understanding the functioning of the information game and information manipulation,
4. getting acquainted with tools supporting the verification and analysis of information and fake news,
5. acquiring knowledge of how to react to false information in conversation and on the Internet,
6. acquiring knowledge on how to take action to combat disinformation.

The workshops were carried out as part of the project entitled "Direction for the Future - Starachowice Local Development Program" from the Local Development Program, co-financed by the Norwegian Financial Mechanism for 2014-2021 (85%) and the state budget (15%).