Google contributes 25 million euros to strengthen media literacy in Europe

Google has announced to contribute 25 million euros towards the European Media and Information. This fund will be working to strengthening media literacy skills, fight misinformation, and support fact-checking.

In the coming weeks, the Fund will open for proposals from academics, nonprofits, and publishers based in the European Union, Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom.

Independent committees made up of industry experts will select the winning ideas and Google won’t be involved in any decision-making related to the Fund.

“Since 2015, we’ve provided funding and technical support to organizations focused on misinformation, including innovative new models like CrossCheck in France, and provided digital verification training to 90,000 European journalists, receiving over 400,000 visits to our training website,” Google informed.

Through its philanthropic arm, Google.org, the company has provided 3.2 million euros in funding since 2018 to programs like Newswise, The Student View, and Weitklick, and through the Google News Initiative additional funding to support Students for President and Zeit fur Lehrer.

“We are continuing our other efforts to support media literacy for young people, with Be Internet Legends and Be Internet Citizens providing digital skills to help schoolchildren and teenagers verify and fact-check,” the company said.