During 2018, Dr Tamilselvi Natarajan came across a video depicting a child kidnapping, which was widely circulated on WhatsApp in India. The was triggered various rumors of child abductions across the country and led to horrific violence, including lynchings and mob attacks.

In reality, however, the video was not of an actual kidnapping, nor was it filmed in India; it was a public service announcement, created in Pakistan, that demonstrated a child abduction to raise awareness about child safety.

“This incident affected me deeply,” said Natarajan, who at the time was an assistant media professor in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu. “I felt a strong sense of responsibility to address this issue, and I made it a point to discuss it regularly in my classes with students.”

Already a media educator for nearly 15 years, the episode marked the beginning of Natarajan’s journey to expand his knowledge of how to identify and debunk disinformation.

She sought specialized fact-checking training through a news and information program run by DataLeads. Then covid-19 struck. During the height of the pandemic, she came across a piece of suspicious information, which led her to begin her training.

“One viral post claimed to give the contact numbers of more than 100 doctors who could be reached for emergency help,” she recalled. She reached out to each of them, only to find that none of the numbers were correct – they were either wrong numbers or not in use at all. “I decided to fight this by debunking misinformation alongside like-minded people.”

Year 2021, together with Induja Ragunathaneditor for Tamil YourStorylaunched Natarajan MeiFactoryinitially as a Facebook page dedicated to exposing errors and misinformation about health. MeiFactory evolved into a full-fledged fact-checking website and is still active today through the contributions of Natarajan and volunteers. A year later, Natarajan moved to Oman to pursue an opportunity as a media professor at Bayan College.

It wasn’t long before she came across ICFJ’s Media Literacy Training of Trainers, run in partnership with MediaWise. The initiative was designed to deepen participants’ understanding of error and disinformation networks, equip them with skills to reach new audiences, and build their knowledge of new technologies such as artificial intelligence that can further blur the line between reality and manipulated content – all so they could then train others. “The program introduced me to a range of advanced fact-checking tools that have really empowered me in my endeavours,” she said.

As a professor, Natarajan found it easy to reach the target audience of students and university staff for the media literacy workshops she continued to conduct. Contacting them was easy; Convincing them that disinformation existed in Oman was the hard part. “Initially, the participants were not very interested in the workshops,” she said. “When I introduced real-life examples, especially those relevant to their country, their attitudes changed.”

Natarajan highlighted fake news reports that claimed locusts swarmed a mosque in Mecca, and disinformation If climate change and the occurrence of financial frauds and their impact on victims.

These examples caught students’ attention and helped them open up about questionable information they themselves came across online. “One participant mentioned coming across news on social media that falsely claimed (that a) mutated strain of the coronavirus was causing infertility in women,” Natarajan said. “In reality, this information was rejected as false.”

Natarajan has navigated a language barrier during her trainings, which she conducts in English for primarily Arabic-speaking cohort participants. “I had a co-trainer with me to translate some concepts into Arabic,” she said. “I also created a short video in Arabic to enhance the effect of the training.”

She made her training interactive, getting students to discuss the challenges they’ve faced and convince others—especially their parents—that some news is wrong. After the workshops, participants suggested offering the training exclusively in Arabic to parents and older family members to help them understand the impact misinformation can have on their lives. “This collective commitment to fighting fake news underscores the importance of fostering an informed and critically engaged community,” she said.

To sustain the momentum resulting from her education, Natarajan, with the support of Bayan College, started a media literacy club at the university, where students now host discussions, organize fact-checking workshops, run digital media literacy campaigns and design outreach programs to form partnerships with organizations for media literacy.

“Through this initiative, we are creating a long-term impact by engaging more students and faculty in the conversation. This broader reach ensures that media literacy becomes an integral part of college culture,” she said.

Going forward, Natarajan plans to include sign language in his courses to make them accessible to a larger audience. “By partnering with sign language professionals, I hope to create an inclusive learning environment for people with hearing loss,” she said.

Her work shows that fighting disinformation is more than just fact-checking – it requires a community-wide effort to build digital resilience. At the center of these efforts is critical thinking. “Critical thinking enables individuals to analyze and evaluate the information they encounter, (and) encourages questioning the validity of claims,” ​​she said. “This skill is important not only for personal empowerment but also for promoting a more informed and responsible society.”

Renata Salvini and Brittani Kollar contributed to this article.

Image courtesy of Bayan College.