Google pledges 25 million euros to strengthen media literacy in Europe

Google has announced to contribute 25 million euros towards the European Media and Information Fund to strengthen 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 UK.

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, the company said in a statement on Wednesday.

“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 programmes 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.