"Beaches in the Algarve evacuated yesterday afternoon": Mirage wave scares bathers" --
Grupo Impresa CEO Francisco Pedro Balsemão said that he never forgot the terror provoked by the false information about an impending tsunami 25 years ago.
A Portuguese media conglomerate and the nation's leading educational book publisher partnered in a three-year project for students to become savvy in detecting fake news.
The "Inform or Misinform" competition plans to involve more then 5,000 primary, secondary and vocational schools and about 1 million students in designing projects to detect fake news, reported Expresso (October 8). There were 1,340,413 students in primary through secondary education during the school year 2022/2023, according to Statista.
The initiative's collaborators hope to develop in youth "a critical sense regarding the content they consume daily, to reflect on the value of truth in communication and journalism, and to explore innovative solutions". Their reason for stimulating the ability to detect and denounce fake news is to help contribute to the building of a "more informed and fair society".
Interestingly, the Portuguese are more concerned about what is real or false on the internet (72 percent) compared to the average (59 percent) of the 47 countries analyzed in Reuters Digital News Report 2024, reported Expresso (June 17).
The "Inform or Misinform" contest is being promoted by the publishing house, Porta Editora, through its Escola Virtual (Virtual School) in partnership with Grupo Impresa, which owns Expresso newspaper, the SIC television channel and other media.
Expressinho, the Expresso magazine supplement for young readers, announced the official start of the acceptance of applications as October 25, its day of publication of an issue focused on the power of information.
Registration is open until January 31, 2025. The submissions will then be subject to a public vote between February 17 and February 23, 2025. Afterwards, a specialized jury will evaluate the work. The finalists are scheduled to be announced on March 10, 2025, with the awards ceremony marked for March 26, coinciding with the weeklong celebrations of the United Nations International Right to Truth Day on March 24, reported Expresso (October 8).
The United Nations General Assembly proclaimed March 24 as the International Day for the Right to Truth concerning Gross Human Rights Violations and for the Dignity of Victims. The date was chosen because on March 24, 1980, Archbishop Oscar Arnulfo Romero of El Salvador, who denounced human rights violations, was shot dead by a politically motivated death squad as he said Mass, according to the U.N. website.
"The truth is an empowering and healing force. We embrace it for the past, the present and the future," said U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres, who was born in Lisbon but whose family's roots are in the village of Dornas, Fundão Municipality. The former prime minister of Portugal (1995-2002) was appointed U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (2005-2015). He assumed the office of Secretary-General in 2017 and is now serving his second term.
"Information Is a Superpower"
In Expressinho (October 25), the chief executive officer (CEO) of Grupo Impresa, Francisco Pedro Balsemão, offered advice, personal experience and philosophy to young readers regarding wrong information.
"Information is a superpower! If we know how to distinguish the true information from false, we can fly to any corner of the world on the internet and destroy the lies that circulate on social networks, search engines, etc. thus making the world a better place."
"Curiosity is a great tool for everything in life. With it, we get out of our daily lives and travel to other universes (in other words, it stimulates the imagination) and our brains train to become more muscular (in other words, it keeps us intellectually active). Misinformation will lose by 'knock-out' in a boxing ring against curiosity . . . "
The CEO said that he is sceptical of what he reads and sees and advised never to circulate or share information which is not 100 percent certain of being true.
Imaginary Algarve Tsunami
The 44-year-old recalled a frightening experience of misinformation "many years ago at a time when there was no internet yet".
The teenager was in a car with his mother on the way to the Algarve when the radio broadcasted that a tsunami was about to sweep the Algarve coast. He said that people panicked abandoning the beaches and that his family was scared. Hours later, everyone learned that it was not true. Yet, he said that he never forgot the terror provoked by the false information.
Whether it was an optical illusion or something strange and inexplicable, holidaymakers fled the imaginary tsunami of August 1999 as fast as they could, some leaving seafront restaurants without paying their bill, some leaving the beaches but remaining on the seafront "as if there were a red light to stop the sea when it approached them", some climbing onto balconies and others driving off toward the mountains, reported Público (August 14, 2019).
Liberdade Para Pensar
Expresso was first published in January 1973, 15 months before the Carnation Revolution overthrew nearly 50 years of authoritarian rule in Portugal. A phrase often used in connection with the newspaper is Liberdade para pensar (Freedom to think).
Francisco Pedro Balsemão was asked to finish the sentence: "Temos libertade para pensar quando . . . (We have freedom to think when . . .)
He filled in: "we all have the tools to distinguish good information from lixo (rubbish) and know how to use them appropriately."
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