Slides from Ana Arevadze (ForSet, Georgia)’s talk about their work with social media influencers to inform and educate Georgian youth on voting and democratic information.
At this TICTeC gathering, we heard directly from practitioners running civic and pro-democracy tech initiatives from across the world.
They shared the strategies they’re using to reach people where they are, ensure their services remain accessible and relevant, and find new ways to track impact in this changing digital landscape.
Recent developments at Facebook and X have shown the need for ‘civic social media’ platforms — thriving and trusted digital meeting spaces that allow communities to safely meet, without economic exploitation or the fear of harassment. What does it take to design and manage such sites?
In this TICTeC 2025 presentation by Eva Oosterlaken (Futurall / Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences), hear an overview of civic social media use cases, the implications for public organisations, a series of design principles to actualise them, and a peek into the future by means of a road map.
Tasked to identify trends and actors fuelling information disorder ahead of the elections, the CDD West Africa team launched a social media chatbot, allowing users to directly report claims from their own social media channels. The submitted claims enabled the team to upload verified fact-checks, granting users real-time access to accurate information.
Hear more about this project in Aluko Ahmad (CDD West Africa)’s TICTeC 2025 presentation.
Two million young people from Yemen, Libya, Egypt, DRC, Burundi, Mali and China engage in Citizens’ Voice online communities where they share diverse viewpoints in a safe, alternative civic space.
The phenomena of political filtering and unfriending on social media, and their civic and political implications in an international context.
A behind-the-scenes look at how Facebook attempted to identify and combat coordinated attempts at manipulation and voter suppression on their platform.
Reflections on the political origins and implications of terms in the accountability field, addressing their invention, translation, appropriation and circulation in different contexts.
From Facebook’s Civic Engagement team, a presentation considering why and how they promote civic discourse among their vast userbase. A slide deck.
CoFacts is a collaborative fact-checking project that combines a chatbot with a hoax database, integrated within LINE, a popular instant messenger app in Asia.
A modified version of iHub Kenya’s Umati project monitored and countered hate speech during the country’s elections of 2015. Learn about the link between events offline and hate speech online, that allow triggers to be identified.
Polarisation in social media has become a major concern, with these platforms spreading misinformation, fostering confirmation bias and increasing segregation. But social media can also have a positive effect on democracy.
How citizens and campaigns have used the Crowdpac platform in the US, the UK and France, with particular emphasis on the French elections.
Members of Facebook’s Civic Engagement team run through their democratic bolt-on to the social media site, Voting Plan. A slide deck.
Governments seeking to harness existing communication trends also must grapple with the additional constraints that come with adapting to these rather inflexible platforms.