A new youth-led broadcast project is set to tackle misinformation and disinformation during the upcoming Scottish Elections, giving young people across the country a platform to investigate claims and engage voters with fact-checked reporting.
Launched yesterday (25 March 2026) Future Proof is an innovative initiative led by the Scottish Youth Film Foundation (SYFF). Six young journalists from across Scotland have been recruited to report on election campaigns through the lens of misinformation, disinformation and AI-generated content.
One of the six journalists is Rory Kirkpatrick from Portobello. Rory said: “As misinformation seems to get more and more prevalent, bringing attention to the truth only becomes more important.
“I believe we all must adapt to the ways that the spread of misinformation is changing in the age of social media.
“I’m joining SYFF’s Future Proof newsroom with the aim of helping people stay informed so that they can make decisions based off facts.”
Also joining Rory will be Emilie from Fort William, Robert from Kiltarlity, Rachel and Santi from Glasgow, and Tom from Kirkcaldy. Together, they offer a broad and diverse perspective on the issues affecting young people across the country.
Starting from 8 April, the team will produce four weekly live shows on YouTube, broadcasting every Tuesday at 6pm until 29 April. Each programme will investigate misleading claims, fabricated facts and AI generated content circulating during the campaign, while highlighting the issues that matter most to young voters.
Following each broadcast, the team will host a companion interactive webinar, allowing young people across Scotland to question the journalists directly and engage with expert guests on the key topics shaping the election.
The sessions aim to support engagement among young and first-time voters, while also providing relevant discussion material for teachers and pupils in schools.
David Barras, co-founder of the Scottish Youth Film Foundation, said:
“It’s fantastic that Rory is supporting this really important project. Future Proof puts young people at the heart of one of the most important conversations in modern democracy – how we recognise truth in an age of misinformation.
“By giving young journalists the tools to investigate claims and question narratives, we’re helping ensure that the next generation of voters is informed, confident and ready to engage.
“The project was inspired by a discussion on media literacy and disinformation at the Scottish Parliament’s Festival of Politics in summer 2025. Building on that conversation, Future Proof invites young people to articulate the issues that go beyond party political priorities and bring their perspectives to the centre of election debate.”
The post-show webinars are being delivered with support from Scotland’s Development Education Centres, working collectively on media literacy as part of global citizenship education under the umbrella of Scotland’s International Development Alliance (SIDA).
The project is being advised by Huw Owen, a former BBC Scotland News Editor who is also the Co-Chair of the Education Committee of SIDA.
Huw Owen said: “The impact of malicious and careless communication via digital and social media is now having a profound effect on all our lives. Supercharged by AI fakes, it is fuelling polarisation and fear within and between many of our communities here in Scotland and beyond. It is a clear threat to civilised debate and long shared democratic values.
“Across the globe, the distortion or misinterpretation of facts about conflicts in Ukraine, Gaza and now Iran, or the undermining of well-established research on the climate crisis, must be combated with up-to-date guidance and support to help us turn the tide towards truth, honesty and decency in our politics.
“As a global citizenship community across Scotland and beyond, we firmly believe this effort must start in our schools and other places of learning. We need to reaffirm universal values of fairness and tolerance along with up-to-date tools and techniques to actively combat disinformation.
“This must be an overarching priority for whichever government is elected at Holyrood. It’s not too late to future proof our democracy.”
The initiative also brings together a range of national partners supporting young people’s participation in democratic debate.
Global fact-checking organisation Full Fact will provide training to the young journalists. The organisation has warned about the growing threat of AI-driven misinformation during election campaigns and continues to call for stronger responses to protect democratic processes.
Mark Frankel from Full Fact says: “These elections are taking place against a backdrop of an unprecedented distortion of facts. The public feels ill-equipped to deal with the manipulation of information they see before them and the threat of AI as they see it.
“Things are emerging online which are being pushed to them and they don’t know whether to believe it. It’s clear that this is undermining trust in our politicians, trust in the political system and the future of our democracies.”
Additional partners include Young Scot and the Scottish Youth Parliament, whose report “Young People and Politics” has informed the project and whose networks will help bring young voices into the conversation through guest speakers and participation opportunities.
The John Smith Centre will also contribute guest speakers and provide access to a youth hustings event taking place at St Giles’ Cathedral in Edinburgh on 26 April.
Future Proof will stream live on YouTube at 6pm on 8, 15, 22 and 29 April. Each broadcast will be followed by an interactive webinar open to schools, youth organisations and young people across Scotland.
