New BMFTR project SynDIKAT on synthetic disinformation data

In May 2026 we launched SynDIKAT (“Synthetic Disinformation Data, Infrastructure for Collaboration and Analysis Toolbox for Social Media Research”), funded by the Federal Ministry of Research, Technology and Space (BMFTR) until April 2029.

The project tackles restricted access to platform data by combining legally compliant data sharing with synthetic social media datasets generated from large language models and agent-based simulations. The goal is to make methods for detecting and studying disinformation comparable—and to grow a data-sharing community around that work.

I represent GESIS in a consortium with the University of Münster, CAIS, and TU Dortmund, coordinated by Christian Grimme.

More details are on the project page and the University of Münster project site.