ECHO Project Objectives

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Our objectives

ECHO aims to empower citizens and key societal actors to detect, understand, and counter disinformation in a responsible, inclusive, and ethical way.
The project responds to the growing gap between citizens’ access to information and their ability to verify what is accurate, trustworthy, and free from manipulation.
Disinformation affects democratic debate, public health, financial decisions, trust in institutions, and social cohesion.
ECHO addresses this challenge by combining education, technology, participatory methods, and civic engagement

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ECHO’s main objectives

ECHO develops training programmes, awareness activities, and practical tools that help citizens, healthcare workers, public employees, journalists, and community actors recognise false or misleading information.

The project helps citizens and professionals understand AI-generated content, identify hallucinations and biases, and use AI tools critically and responsibly.

Through workshops, bootcamps, gamified experiences, escape rooms, debates, hackathons, and citizen validation campaigns, ECHO promotes critical thinking and healthy scepticism toward online information.

ECHO designs and pilots prototypes for detecting disinformation, especially in civic and healthcare contexts. These tools are validated through focus groups and real-world pilot activities.

The project encourages citizens to become active participants in information verification. Through accessible tools and campaigns, participants learn how to validate claims, check sources, and identify AI-generated falsehoods.

ECHO will establish a collaborative space where citizens can access verified information, share concerns, participate in debunking activities, and co-create counter-narratives that support democratic values.

The project analyses how disinformation spreads in healthcare, civic participation, finance, education, media, and AI-generated environments. This helps produce risk maps, guidelines, datasets, and evidence-based recommendations.

ECHO gives particular attention to groups that may face barriers in accessing reliable information, including young people, older adults, people with disabilities, migrants, low-literacy populations, and digitally marginalised citizens.

Through youth ambassador activities and peer-led engagement, ECHO supports young Europeans to become multipliers of digital literacy, civic participation, and democratic resilience.

ECHO raises awareness about threats such as SLAPPs, manipulation of public debate, and attacks on journalists or civic actors, while promoting transparency, rights, and responsible communication.