Internet Society Netherlands (ISOC NL) acquires Make Media Great Again (MMGA) to jointly combat global ‘infodemic’.

In conjunction with other Internet Society divisions worldwide (called chapters), the ISOC MMGA Working Group is setting-up a Global (mis)Information Observatory (GIO) as one of the first priorities. Multiple ISOC chapters within countries such as Benin, India, Malta, the Netherlands, Slovenia and Suriname have already initiated a collaboration with MMGA concerning fake news webinars and localized improvement of online news media.

The Working Group will collaborate with impactful media and scientists but also with the MMGA community consisting of critical thinking citizens and experts called “MMGA annotators”. MMGA annotations are practicable suggestions in the form of labelled notes, directly attributed to words, sentences or paragraphs. They are actionable for the news editor, avoid debate based on personal preferences and, if correct, directly trigger a correction within articles. Editors are free to implement or not. Because the annotations are immediately executable and based on the principle of journalistic objectivity, they overcome the known issue of lengthy debate due to subjectivity that arises with regular reader comments. 

Currently, almost four hundred citizens are registered at MMGA. Within the annotating community, there are dozens of engaged journalists, scientists, software developers and other professionals, who follow an ethical and inclusive code of conduct and are being trained in journalistic principles and constructive feedback. 

The Working Group will be co-led by ISOC Netherlands chairman Alex Blom and Ruben Brave as a board member. Financial details of the transfer are not disclosed. As a Working Group aimed at the reliability of media, the initiative will continue to focus on the themes of fake news, misinformation and quality control of impactful media in general. 

Interested to learn more or even join? Send an email to r.brave@board.isoc.nl or visit https://isoc.nl/nieuws/oprichting-make-media-great-again-working-group/ . You can still join, by registering on the MMGA website, now also as Internet Society member: www.mmga.io 

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about Internet Society

Internet Society (ISOC) is a civil society Internet governance organization founded in the early nineties by the “Internet fathers” Bob Khan and Vint Cerf. ISOC provides leadership in Internet-related standards, education, access, and policy. Its mission is "to promote the open development, evolution and use of the Internet for the benefit of all people throughout the world". It has offices in Reston, Virginia, United States and Switzerland and more than 130 chapters worldwide manned by 110 employees, more than 4000 volunteers and almost 70.000 members. Its motto is "The Internet is for Everyone". ISOC’s revenue was US$ 56,762,624 (in 2018) with endowment of US$42,970,000 (2018 - Internet Society Foundation), US$34,512,184 (2018 - cash holdings) and US$1.13 billion (2019 - pending). Internet Society Netherlands (ISOC NL) is the Dutch division (chapter) of Internet Society and officially based at the Dutch Royal Library in The Hague Netherlands.

More on Internet Society Netherlands can be found at www.isoc.nl 

about Make Media Great Again

Make Media Great Again  (MMGA) was initiated in 2017 by the Netherlands based Bema foundation, which was also involved in the first preparations for the European Press Prize. The board of the Bema foundation presently consists of Adriaan Stoop, who serves as a board member at several impactful media organizations (a.o. NRC Media, MDIF) and Ruben Brave, a Dutch internet pioneer & social entrepreneur. MMGA is a blockchain-based annotation platform in which screened & trained expert and/or critical thinking readers (with hundreds of registrants) can provide constructive feedback to high-impact news sites concerning the use of sources and other quality aspects of news articles to correct misinformation and combat disinformation; NU.nl and AD.nl, two of the 'Big Four' largest Dutch online news platforms have recently signed up as a co-development partner. Ruben Brave has shared MMGA's journey with the European Commission but also many others, includingp through platforms such as Spotify and Issuu, and at events as the Post-Truth Conference on Malta, which included speakers from Google, Worldbank, Wikipedia, MIT and The Economist.

More on MMGA can be found here: www.mmga.io and on Medium.

about Alexander Blom

Alexander Blom (1956) chairman of Internet Society Netherland and director / co-owner of Budget Phone Company, an independent VOIP provider in Leiden the Netherland. He is particularly interested in the legal and technical aspects. At Budget Phones' software development he often acts as project manager. He is a mentor at Startupbootcamp Amsterdam, member of Sovrin Network (a distributed ledger that allows people and organizations to control their digital identities through SSI technology) and CTO/co-founder of bloqzone (a startup developing identified communications).

More on Alexander Blom’s profile can be found here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alblom/ 

about Ruben Brave

Ruben Brave (1974) is an internet pioneer, board member of Internet Society Netherlands (ISOC) and the Dutch Startup Association (dSa), media professional and technology, media telecommunications (TMT) entrepreneur. Since 2004 founder of academic business incubator Entelligence b.v. for pre-seed financing, (valorisation) mentoring and coaching at start-ups in the field of Online Media, ICT & automation, Health & Life-Long Learning. Initiator of Make Media Great Again (MMGA.io)

More on Ruben Brave’s profile can be found here: https://bit.ly/profile-rubenbrave-pdf 

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NOT FOR PUBLISHING

For press inquiries

Internet Society Netherlands

mr Alexander Blom (chairman ISOC NL, +31(0 6 54 23 51 67) and ms Camilla Nieman (community manager)

e-mail: bureau@isoc.nl

see also: https://isoc.nl/contact/

Full press info packages available: mmga.pr.co