WORK

Below is a curated list of companies and organizations that are prioritizing building new tools and platforms that prioritize the public good.

Access Now Defends and extends the digital rights of users at risk around the world. Has a 24/7 Digital Security Helpline that provides comprehensive, real-time technical assistance to users at risk, including civil society groups, activists, journalists, and human rights defenders. Seeks to serve, guide, and influence decision makers across sectors through human rights-focused thought leadership and innovative, evidence-based policy analysis. Leverages innovative campaign tactics, bold visual advocacy, and global partnerships with civil society, journalists, technologists, and beyond. Provides flexible and grantee-driven funding to grassroots organizations and activist groups that are working with users and communities most at risk of digital rights violations. We strategically engage courts and legal processes to hold governments and companies accountable and to uphold fundamental rights in the digital age.

Accountable Tech Accountable Tech is working to bring about long-term structural reform to tackle the existential threat social media companies pose to our information ecosystem and democracy. Offers campaigns, research, and reports to combat social media networks.

Algorithmic Justice League The Algorithmic Justice League is an organization that combines art and research to illuminate the social implications and harms of artificial intelligence. AJL’s mission is to raise public awareness about the impacts of AI, equip advocates with empirical research to bolster campaigns, build the voice and choice of the most impacted communities, and galvanize researchers, policymakers, and industry practitioners to mitigate AI bias and harms.

All Tech is Human All Tech Is Human is a non-profit committed to connecting and expanding the Responsible Tech ecosystem so we can co-create a better tech future. We do this through a variety of activities focused around three key areas: multi-stakeholder convening & community-building, multidisciplinary education, and diversifying the pipeline with more backgrounds and lived experiences. Our organization has a large community Slack group, regular summits & mixers, a mentorship program, Responsible Tech Talent Pool, university ambassadors program, open working groups that develop reports, office hours, a job board, and our just-released Responsible Tech Guide.

Center for Humane Technology (CHT) Nonprofit organization dedicated to radically reimagining the digital infrastructure. Solutions oriented. Its mission is to drive a comprehensive shift toward humane technology that supports the collective well-being, democracy and shared information environment.

The Centre for Information Resilience (CIR) The Centre for Information Resilience (CIR) is an independent, non-profit social enterprise dedicated to countering disinformation, exposing human rights abuses, and combating online behaviour harmful to women and minorities. We achieve these goals through research, digital investigations, strategic communications, building the capacity of local partners, and collaborating with media to amplify the impact of our work.

Check My Ads Check My Ads Institute is an independent watchdog reshaping the digital adtech industry from within its ranks — and building a new sustainable standard in digital advertising. We’re holding the surveillance adtech industry accountable for abuses against advertisers and consumers, and spearheading the development of a transparent, efficient and privacy-focused digital advertising marketplace.

Civic Signals CivicSignal is the research and analysis programme of Code for Africa, the continent’s largest network of indigenous African civic technology and investigative data journalism laboratories. We give you actionable insights to help you navigate Africa’s media ecosystem and emerging civic technology sector. Our insights are based on analysis by human experts, using machine learning tools and ‘big data’ resources.

Commission on Information Disorder (Aspen Institute) The effort aims to identify and prioritize the most critical sources and causes of information disorder and deliver a set of short-term actions and longer-term goals to help government, the private sector, and civil society respond to this modern-day crisis of faith in key institutions. The Commission will also lay out a longer-term research, study, or action agenda for the field to undertake in the years ahead. Throughout its work, it will also consider issues of equity and community representation when it comes both to the negative effects of disinformation as well as efforts to counter such problems.

Cyber Collective We get people to think critically about their relationship with the internet by: Investigating how people’s identities shape how they experience the internet, educating people about how technology affects them and their communities, and simplifying technical information that everyone needs to understand. We engage our community through relatable social media content, creative research sessions, and course material that explore the world of data ethics, privacy, and cybersecurity.

Defenders of Democracy Against Disinformation A clearinghouse of concrete actions individuals and groups can take to: 1) stop the normalization of disinformation, and 2) reduce their own contributions to the revenue of companies that profit from disinformation. Our initial goals: 1) Signal that consumers want and deserve access to a range of TV news channels whose purchase does not enrich Fox “News” through bloated fees. 2) Delegitimize Fox “News” as an acceptable news source because of its opinion programs; delegitimize Fox Corp’s current management approach and as a corporation suitable for ad buys. 3) Provide those who are active in DDAD campaigns the tools, support, and reinforcement to counter Fox “News” disinformation.

Democracy & Tech Initiative The Democracy & Tech Initiative creates policy practices that align global stakeholders toward tech and governance that reinforces, rather than undermines, open societies. It builds on the DFRLab’s established track record and leadership in the open-source field, empowering global communities to promote transparency and accountability online and around the world. The Initiative examines how the tech that connects and informs people is funded, built, and governed, and how that affects the viability of rights-respecting and democratic societies around the world.

Digital Forensic Research Lab (DFRLab) from the Atlantic Council To identify, expose, and explain disinformation where and when it occurs using open source research; to promote objective truth as a foundation of government for and by people; to protect democratic institutions and norms from those who would seek to undermine them in the digital engagement space.

Disinformation Action Lab from Data & Society Data & Society is an independent nonprofit research organization. We believe that empirical evidence should directly inform the development and governance of new technology. We study the social implications of data and automation, producing original research to ground informed, evidence-based public debate about emerging technology.

Disinfo Defense League (DDL)  The Disinfo Defense League is a distributed network of grassroots, community-based organizations that are building a collective defense against disinformation and surveillance campaigns that deliberately target Black, Latinx, Asian Americans and Indigenous people, along with other communities of color. DDL uses coordinated strategy, disinformation training, and research to support member organizations with resources to fortify and scale current inoculation efforts and increase cohesion and collaboration in targeted communities.

Disinformation Nation An education project of the Freedom Forum Institute, a nonpartisan organization headquartered in Washington, D.C., that fosters First Amendment freedoms for all. The Freedom Forum Institute carries out its work through its programs, initiatives and conferences on First Amendment freedoms; education programs about the five freedoms in the amendment; exploration and education of the intersection of religion and public life; and efforts to encourage journalistic excellence, diversity and workplace integrity in the news media.

Distributed Artificial Intelligence Research Institute We are an interdisciplinary and globally distributed AI research institute rooted in the belief that AI is not inevitable, its harms are preventable, and when its production and deployment include diverse perspectives and deliberate processes it can be beneficial. Our research reflects our lived experiences and centers our communities.

European Digital Media Observatory The European Digital Media Observatory (EDMO) brings together fact-checkers, media literacy experts, and academic researchers to understand and analyse disinformation, in collaboration with media organizations, online platforms and media literacy practitioners. EDMO will deploy a platform to support the work of a multidisciplinary community with expertise in the field of online disinformation. EDMO will contribute to a deeper understanding of disinformation relevant actors, vectors, tools, methods, dissemination dynamics, targets, and impact on society.

EUvsDisinfo EUvsDisinfo is the flagship project of the European External Action Service’s East StratCom Task Force. It was established in 2015 to better forecast, address, and respond to the Russian Federation’s ongoing disinformation campaigns affecting the European Union, its Member States, and countries in the shared neighbourhood. EUvsDisinfo’s core objective is to increase public awareness and understanding of the Kremlin’s disinformation operations, and to help citizens in Europe and beyond develop resistance to digital information and media manipulation.

For Digital Dignity For Digital Dignity is a research initative to dissect complex relationship between online media cultures and political participation, and advance critical inquiry on the politcal impact of digital media. Our interventions in digital research have centered upon long-term ethnographic investigations, emphasis on historical awareness, collaborative mixed methods (data science and qualitative research), and multimodal engagements. We host a range of projects, from ethnographic explorations of online cultures in India and the South Asian diaspora in Europe to global comparative studies of extreme speech, artificial intelligence, and hate speech moderation.

Free Software Foundation The Free Software Foundation is working to secure freedom for computer users by promoting the development and use of free (as in freedom) software and documentation—particularly the GNU operating system—and by campaigning against threats to computer user freedom like Digital Restrictions Management (DRM) and software patents.

Free Press We believe that positive social change, racial justice and meaningful engagement in public life require equitable access to technology, diverse and independent ownership of media platforms, and journalism that holds leaders accountable and tells people what’s actually happening in their communities. We seek to change the media to transform democracy to realize a just society. We focus on saving Net Neutrality, achieving affordable internet access for all, uplifting the voices of people of color in the media, challenging old and new media gatekeepers to serve the public interest, ending unwarranted surveillance, defending press freedom and reimagining local journalism.

Future Internet Lab at Waag The Future Internet Lab researches and designs digital public spaces where the citizen is central to the design process rather than the consumer. We also consider the technologies used by our government. As more and more public services are digitised, how do we ensure that societal interests remain paramount? One way we do this is by investigating the algorithms currently in place as well as their underlying values. In our policy labs, we advise and educate government agencies in the field of technology and data.

Global Disinformation Index Focused on spread of falsehoods online. GDI was established in 2018 as a not-for-profit entity built on the three pillars of neutrality, independence and transparency. The Global Disinformation Index provides advertisers, ad tech companies and platforms with trusted, non-partisan and independent ratings to assess a site’s disinformation risks. The Global Disinformation Index is a web-based tool that rates news outlets based on the “probability of disinformation on a specific media outlet.” This rating system will cover all types of media, and will be a real time score.

Institute for the Cooperative Digital Economy Purpose is to provide prospective and existing platform co-ops with applied and theoretical knowledge, education, and policy analysis… The ICDE makes this knowledge accessible to diverse audiences in innovative formats. Through this research, the Institute builds a body of knowledge that advances platform ownership and democratic governance for workers and Internet users alike.

Institute for the Future — Digital Intelligence Lab The Digital Intelligence Laboratory at the Institute for the Future is a social scientific research entity conducting work on the most pressing issues at the intersection of technology and society. We examine how new technologies and media can be used to both benefit, and challenge, democratic communication.

Integrity Institute We are a community of integrity professionals—the people who build platforms to be better. We want a social internet that helps individuals, societies, and democracies thrive. We are here to explore, research and teach—each other, the platforms, and the world—how to do that best. Our focus is on building an internet that contributes to human flourishing — for individuals, for societies, and especially for democracies. We are working together to learn and to teach how to fix it. In this process, we are independent, honest, and constructive. Our priority is that society makes progress towards a better social internet.

International Consortium of Investigative Journalists We are driven by the belief that citizens have the right to be better informed, that access to independently-sourced facts is not only essential for democracy but is also a fundamental human right. To fight these forces, ICIJ has directed the largest cross-border reporting initiatives in history, convincing reporters across the globe to set aside traditional rivalries to uncover corruption, abuses of power and grave harms inflicted on the world’s most vulnerable people.

Media Matters for America Media Matters for America is a web-based, not-for-profit, 501 (c)(3) progressive research and information center dedicated to comprehensively monitoring, analyzing, and correcting conservative misinformation in the U.S. media. Using the website mediamatters.org as the principal vehicle for disseminating research and information, Media Matters posts rapid-response items as well as longer research and analytic reports documenting conservative misinformation throughout the media. Additionally, Media Matters works daily to notify activists, journalists, pundits, and the general public about instances of misinformation, providing them with the resources to rebut false claims and to take direct action against offending media institutions.

Metafact Metafact is a fact-checking platform. You ask a question, we source many independent experts (verified PhDs, researchers & medical specialists) to verify the evidence. Metafact’s mission is to connect people with trusted evidence on questions that impact their lives, societies and the world around them.

Mozilla Foundation Mozilla continues to fight for a healthy internet — one where Big Tech is held accountable and individual users have real agency online…. It is Mozilla’s duty to ensure the internet remains a force for good. Founded as a community open source project in 1998, Mozilla currently consists of two organizations: the 501(c)3 Mozilla Foundation, which leads our movement building work; and its wholly owned subsidiary, the Mozilla Corporation, which leads our market-based work. The two organizations work in close concert with each other and a global community of tens of thousands of volunteers under the single banner: Mozilla.

Network Contagion Research Institute Expert in identifying and forecasting the threat and spread of misinformation and disinformation across social media platforms. Committed to quickly identifying these emerging threats, NCRI forecasts potential risks to empower partners to become proactive in protecting themselves against false narratives that create rifts of distrust that impact institutions, capital markets, public health and safety.

Network for Responsible Public Policy As an organization, NFRPP is committed to credible information, which includes reliable data, facts, research, analyses, and critical thinking. We invite our audiences to engage, ask questions, draw their own conclusions, seek more stories, and help to keep our democracy dynamic and viable.

New_Public New_ Public aims to inspire and connect designers and technologists to build more flourishing digital public spaces. We have been engaging experts across a wide variety of disciplines and doing research to understand what makes “public-friendly” spaces, well, public-friendly — what common characteristics (we call them civic signals) are shared by the spaces that valorize the collective, and that are designed for the greater public good.

News Literacy Project (NLP) NLP, a nonpartisan national education nonprofit, provides programs and resources for educators and the public to teach, learn and share the abilities needed to be smart, active consumers of news and information and equal and engaged participants in a democracy. “News literacy” defined (by NLP) is the ability to determine the credibiilty of news and other content, to identify different types of information, and to use the standards of authoritative, fact-based journalism to determine what to trust, share, and act on.

No License For Disinformation A non-partisan grassroots coalition of Americans who came together in an effort to protect patients, loved ones, and the public at large from the harmful and dangerous effects of medical disinformation. We are building a truly grassroots coalition of physicians, nurses, allied health professionals, disability advocates, parents, and concerned citizens who understand the threat and consequences of this dangerous disinformation, empowering them to speak out against physicians who abuse their status and platforms to spread disinformation, and speak up and call on the medical boards to hold these physicians accountable according to existing consumer protection laws and state statutes.

Omidyar Network Omidyar Network is a social change venture that reimagines critical systems, and the ideas that govern them, to build more inclusive and equitable societies—for the benefit of the many, not just the few—across the globe. Three focus areas: 1) responsible technology: We believe digital technology can and should have a positive impact on society., 2) reimagining capitalism: We believe capitalism can still be a powerful force for good., 3) building cultures of belonging: We believe diverse societies must increase in equality, connection, and respect.

Omidyar Network’s Tech and Society Solutions Lab Omidyar Network, the Silicon Valley impact investment firm, has collaborated with the Institute for the Future (IFTF) on the development of a new toolkit — the Ethical Operating System (Ethical OS) — to help makers of tech, product managers, engineers, and others get out in front of problems before they happen. Three-part guide including 1) Tomorrow’s Risk, Today: Fourteen scenarios to spark conversation and stretch your imagination about the long-term impacts of tech you’re building today, 2. Check Your Tech: A checklist of eight risk zones to help you identify the emerging areas of risk and social harm most critical for your team to start considering now, 3. Future-Proofing Strategies: Seven future-proofing strategies to help you take ethical action today.

Open Technology Institute, New America OTI works at the intersection of technology and policy to ensure that every community has equitable access to digital technology and its benefits. We promote universal access to communications technologies that are both open and secure, using a multidisciplinary approach that brings together advocates, researchers, organizers, and innovators. Our current focus areas include surveillance, privacy and security, net neutrality, broadband access, and consumer privacy. OTI conducts data-driven research, develops policy and regulatory reforms, and builds real-world pilot projects to impact both public policy and physical communications infrastructure that people interact with every day.

Platform Cooperativism Consortium The Platform Cooperativism Consortium (PCC) is a hub for research, community building, and advocacy for co-ops that make the digital transition. The PCC supports the growth and conversion of hundreds of platform co-op businesses with tens of thousands of worker-owners around the world.

Public Stack Aims to describe technology’s underlying complexity in understandable terms, doing so not just from a consumer perspective, but from that of a citizen, as well as specific professional domains. Public Stack puts public values at the centre of the design process, and asks all the difficult questions, leading to safer technology that doesn’t spy on us or sell our data.

RAND Corporation — Information Operations & Social Media Analysis The RAND Corporation is a research organization that develops solutions to public policy challenges to help make communities throughout the world safer and more secure, healthier and more prosperous. RAND is nonprofit, nonpartisan, and committed to the public interest.

Reboot Foundation The Reboot Foundation is devoted to elevating critical thinking. In a time of vast technological change, the foundation aims to promote richer, more reflective forms of thought in schools, homes, and businesses…. the foundation will fund efforts to better integrate critical thinking in the daily lives of people around the world. It will conduct surveys and opinion polls, lead its own research, and support the work of independent scholars.

RightsCon RightsCon is the world’s leading summit on human rights in the digital age. We met with the intention to create something different: a civil society-led space where all stakeholders – from tech companies to government representatives to human rights defenders – could come together to build a rights-respecting digital future. Since 2011, RightsCon has rotated between five continents and grown, both in size and in scope to meet the evolving needs of a movement.

Shared Digital European Public Sphere We are a coalition of organisations and initiatives united in our desire to build a Shared Digital European Public Sphere (SDEPS). We share a belief that there is a need for public digital infrastructures that are based on democratic values and can be used and shaped by public institutions and civic initiatives. Ones that provide alternatives to the existing commercially-driven Internet.

Society Centered Design A manifesto or framework for products, services, and data that is purpose-built for the 21st century. We want to move beyond human-centered design to society-centered design. Where society, not an individual, is at the center… Society-centered design is about changing the climate of ideas, and moving towards real-world solutions. It’s an approach to problem solving, that develops solutions by putting society in every step of the problem-solving process.

Solutions Journalism Network Aims to shift the focus of journalism from documenting problems towards also identifying solutions that empower citizens. The Solutions Journalism Network is leading a global shift in journalism, focused on what the news misses most often: how people are trying to solve problems and what we can learn from their successes or failures.

Stop Hate for Profit Diverse and growing coalition that wants social media companies to take common-sense steps to address the rampant racism, disinformation and hate on its platform.

Stronger Stronger’s goal is to stop the spread of harmful misinformation about science, medicine, and vaccines. We do this by working with partner organizations, sharing correct information, and arming people with ways to fight back. As an advocacy campaign, Stronger has an ever-growing number of public and private sector partners. Stronger is created and managed by PGP, a public health nonprofit. We are a team of experts in public health, research, and media dedicated to defending science in a bold, new way. We rely on data from scientists and vaccine experts to ensure our work is rooted in the facts. Stronger is supported by PGP, BIO, and individual donors.

The Infodemic Blog Learn the skills that will make a dramatic difference in your ability to sort fact from fiction on the web (and everything in between). S: Stop I: Investigate source F: Find better coverage T: Trace claims, quotes, and media to original context.

The IO Foundation A non-profit organization born from a fundamental concern on the state of Digital Rights in the world. We aim to raise awareness on the importance of Digital Rights and seek to help in promoting the creation of a Universal Declaration of Digital Rights (UDDR) with the collaboration of other organizations, both from civil society and bodies of governance.

The Markup Nonprofit newsroom that investigates how powerful institutions are using technology to change our society. We are a new kind of media organization, staffed with an unparalleled roster of quantitative journalists who pursue meaningful, data-driven investigations.

The Media Manipulation Team at Data & Society Research Institute Data & Society’s Media Manipulation & Disinformation research examines how different groups use the participatory culture of the internet to turn the strengths of a free society into vulnerabilities, ultimately threatening expressive freedoms and civil rights. Efforts to exploit technical, social, economic, and institutional configurations of media can catalyze social change, sow dissent, and challenge the stability of social institutions.

Trust Project Works across traditional newsrooms, exploring how trust in journalism has changed, and looking for best practices and technology tools to “bake the evidence of trustworthy reporting — accuracy, transparency and inclusion – plainly into news practices, tools and platforms.

TruthBuzz Modeled on the ICFJ Knight Fellowships, the TruthBuzz program will help reporters adopt compelling storytelling methods that improve the reach and impact of fact-checking and help “inoculate” audiences against false or misleading information. Through a collaboration with First Draft News, fellows and their newsroom partners will receive training in fact-checking and verification.

United for News Persuade advertisers to push platforms to do a better job of screening ads United for News supports local media in their transition to digital, fosters the creation and distribution of trusted content, and increases the positive impact of quality content on the well-being of citizens, communities, native businesses and governments.

Unfinished Unfinished works to strengthen our civic life in the digital age. With a network of partners in technology, academia, social impact and the arts, Unfinished is imagining the future of technology, culture, and governance to create a thriving multiracial democracy and just economy. To achieve this, Unfinished is advancing a very concrete solution through Project Liberty, an initiative with the potential to transform how the internet works and who benefits from the digital economy. Project Liberty aims to create a new civic architecture for the next generation of the internet that prioritizes people over platforms, returns the ownership and control of personal data to individuals, reflects a commitment to ethics and shared values, and expands economic opportunities for both users and developers.