Fighting Misinformation with Journalism, not Algorithms| Alex Cadier and Veena McCoole | Fri, Feb 4th, 2022 | 6pm
This is a live event at Murray Edwards College.
NewsGuard's UK Head, Alex Cadier, and Senior Director of Partnerships, Veena McCoole, will present an overview of NewsGuard's role in the fight against misinformation, with an emphasis on how our journalist-powered data serves partners across various industries such as healthcare, government, intelligence, advertising, media literacy, and so forth.
Specifically, we'll delve into the dangers of content removal, why people share misinformation and the economics of the misinformation industry online, and how NewsGuard's addresses this from a profitable commercial perspective. Both Alex and Veena have a wealth of academic and journalistic experience demonstrating consistent commitment against misinformation which can be read all about here: https://fb.me/e/1gBRNJiTR

Climate Change: Science, Sceptics and Solutions | Mark Maslin | Thu, Feb 24th 2022 | 7pm
Mark Maslin, Professor of Earth System Science at University College London, examines the very latest science behind climate change, why climate deniers are wrong and how we can keep to the 1.5˚C global temperature target.  He will suggest solutions at Government, corporate and individual levels based on his latest book 'How To Save Our Planet' and show why there are reasons to be positive after the Glasgow COP26 climate conference.  He will stress that we can still create a healthier, safer, wealthier, and happier world for everyone. Prof. Maslin is also a Royal Society Wolfson Research Merit Scholar, and author of 8 popular books including The Human Planet and Cradle of Humanity.

What can we learn from conspiracy theories? | Katy Murrey | Thu, Mar 10th 2022 | 6pm
Katy is the Insights and Relationships Lead at Cast from Clay. Cast from Clay is a policy and research communications consultancy, whose goal is to see people better engaged with the decisions and policies that affect their lives. Her nearly 10 years of experience in policy and research communications aids her in in counselling policy experts, think tanks, NGOs and university clients on communicating their work for reach and impact.

In her talk, Katy examines what we can learn from conspiracy theories. Conspiracy theories are getting a lot of attention at the moment, and for good reasons - misinformation and disinformation can be dangerous. So it's natural to want to keep our distance - often by maligning, mocking, othering or fearing believers and their beliefs. But what if we don't? How might it aid our understanding of conspiracy theories - and even limit the harm they can do - to approach them with a little more curiosity and care?

COVID Vaccine Misinformation | Peter Torak, Sunita Sah, John Kerr & Mark Tosher | Thu, Mar 10th 2022 | 6pm
Students Against Pseudoscience is delighted to hold a panel on the state of information surrounding vaccines.
Petr Torak MBE is the Chief Executive Officer of COMPAS Charity. COMPAS Charity is based in Peterborough and have been working to increase vaccination uptake amongst the minority population of Roma people there.

Dr. John Kerr is a researcher at the Winton Centre for Risk and Evidence Communication, and was the lead researcher in a COVID-19 vaccine intentions and attitudes study with the Winton Centre.

Dr. Mark Toshner, a fellow at the Department of Medicine at Cambridge, was the Co-Principal Investigator and Study Doctor of the COVID-19 Oxford vaccine trial and has spoken publicly to rectify misinformation about the vaccine

Professor Sunita Sah is an award-winning professor and organizational psychologist who has spent over a decade conducting ground-breaking research on advisor-advisee relationships, trust, conflicts-of-interest, disclosure and compliance. She has recently written actively on COVID-19 misinformation.

Students Against Pseudoscience | Conferences & Workshops
In the coming year we are hoping to run a series of workshops on topics such as Media Literacy, Risk & Uncertainty and "How to communicate with loved ones who may be more vulnerable to misinformation".