Dear Colleagues,
Good Day,
"How to Detect Fake News in Real-Time
Fast enough to empower humans to take action
Last November, a friend told me about his extended family of Filipino-Americans in the Fresno area. In a matter of days, they went from feeling conflicted about Trump’s candidacy to voting for him en masse. They are Catholics, and once they heard the Pope had endorsed Trump their minds were made up. Of course, this papal endorsement did not really happen. This is an example of fake news wave that went viral and misled millions.
Here is that same story in a Facebook post, shared by the group North Carolina For Donald Trump. They have 65,000 followers, and you can see how shares by dozens of influential groups could spread this to millions.
On the same lines, a site called winningdemocrats.com published a hoax that Ireland is officially accepting “Trump refugees,” which too got a lot of play. This is a bipartisan problem. Journalism is hard work. Fake news for influence and profit is all too easy. Here are more examples.
This made me wonder what Facebook and other platforms could have done to detect these waves of misinformation in real-time. Could they have run countermeasures? If detected in time could they have slowed the spread or marked it as unreliable news?
Platforms need to act
As many have noted, addressing fake news is best done at the level of the major platforms — Facebook, Twitter, Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, and Apple. They control the arteries through which most of the world’s fresh information and influence flows. They are best positioned to see a disinformation outbreak forming. Their engineering teams have the technical chops to detect it and the knobs needed to respond to it.
Both social networks and search engines have engineering levers (think: ranking flexibility) and product options to reduce exposure, mark as false, or fully stop misinformation waves. They will make these decisions individually based on the severity of the problem and how their organization balances information accuracy and author freedom. Google Search has a focus on information access. Facebook sees itself as a facilitator of expression. They may resolve things differently.
Our approach will focus less on banning misinformation, and more on surfacing additional perspectives and information, including that fact checkers, dispute an item’s accuracy. — Mark Zuckerberg."...
Please, go to the attached website link for more details...
https://shift.newco.co/how-to-detect-fake-news-in-real-time-9fdae0197bfd?gi=30cc2b1216de
Dear Colleagues,
Good Day,
"What is ‘fake news,’ and how can you spot it? Try our quiz
....
What fake news is
Disinformation for profit: Craig Silverman, the news media editor at BuzzFeed, has documented dozens of examples of for-profit hoax sites, based in Eastern Europe and elsewhere, who engineered U.S. election coverage that would be widely shared on Facebook so they could reap digital advertising revenue.
Disinformation for political gain: Rulers from Julius Caesar to Joseph Stalin have used biased state media to charm their allies and confuse their enemies. Until recently, we’d just call that propaganda, but in the current context, “fake news” often means something more specific: state-funded fraudulent websites set up by one country to sow confusion in another. Russians call It dezinformatsiya, or disinformation.
Disinformation for crime: Hackers can sometimes gain access to the websites or social media accounts of reputable news outlets and disseminate fake stories. Though they may be motivated by profit or politics, sometimes it’s just to sow confusion for the hell of it.
Viral pranks: Even without nefarious motives or illegal tactics, individuals or group can spread hoaxes for fun, falling somewhere in the no-man’s-land between fake news, pranks and publicity stunts. Consider “Golden Eagle Snatches Kid in Montreal,” a video created by three Montreal animation students in 2012 as a class project.
The video appeared to show a golden eagle (a real species, though not one native to Quebec) grabbing a small child in its talons and flying away. Some media outlets initially reported on the video as fact. So if something that isn’t really a news report is fake, but makes the news, is it fake news? Probably, though it would depend on how many outlets fell for the hoax. Speaking of which …
Uncritically reporting a hoax as fact: If a well-crafted hoax spreads widely enough, credible news outlets can boost the hoax’s credibility if they report it without checking the facts or including the usual caveats that it might be only rumours."...
Please, go to the attached website to read the full article...
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/community/digital-lab/fake-news-quiz-how-to-spot/article33821986/
Hello,
I suggest my works on Trust, including:
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/286676558_The_Wikipedia_Experiment_falsification_and_knowledge_decay_dynamics_in_physics_and_mathematics_online
and
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/286459693_Toward_Real-World_Models_of_Trust_Reliance_on_Received_Information
A result of these studies, is that "a fact is what you were willing to believe". For example, 500 years ago it was a fact that the Sun revolved around the Earth. It was not fake news, it was truth, easily observable, daily.
Cheers, Ed Gerck
Technical Report Toward Real-World Models of Trust: Reliance on Received Information
Research The Wikipedia Experiment: falsification and knowledge decay
There are some research paper about the issue of fake news in RG publication data base. General link follows.
Some of those research papers are:
Fake News, Fake Problem? An Analysis of the Fake News Audience in the Lead Up to the 2016 Presidential Election
Was tun gegen „Fake News"? Eine Analyse anhand der Entstehungsbedingungen und Wirkweisen gezielter Falschmeldungen im Internet
Controversy and Guideline Suggestion Surrounding Fake News in the Digital Media Age
https://www.researchgate.net/search.Search.html?query=fake%20news&type=publication
Conference Paper Fake News, Fake Problem? An Analysis of the Fake News Audien...
Working Paper Was tun gegen „Fake News"? Eine Analyse anhand der Entstehun...
Article Controversy and Guideline Suggestion Surrounding Fake News i...
Dear Colleagues,
Good Day,
"How to Spot Fake News
By Eugene Kiely and Lori Robertson
Fake news is nothing new. But bogus stories can reach more people more quickly via social media than what good old-fashioned viral emails could accomplish in years past.
Concern about the phenomenon led Facebook and Google to announce that they’ll crack down on fake news sites, restricting their ability to garner ad revenue. Perhaps that could dissipate the amount of malarkey online, though news consumers themselves are the best defense against the spread of misinformation.
Not all of the misinformation being passed along online is complete fiction, though some of it is. Snopes.com has been exposing false viral claims since the mid-1990s, whether that’s fabricated messages, distortions containing bits of truth and everything in between. Founder David Mikkelson warned in a Nov. 17 article not to lump everything into the “fake news” category. “The fictions and fabrications that comprise fake news are but a subset of the larger bad news phenomenon, which also encompasses many forms of shoddy, unresearched, error-filled, and deliberately misleading reporting that does a disservice to everyone,” he wrote.
A lot of these viral claims aren’t “news” at all, but fiction, satire, and efforts to fool readers into thinking they’re for real.
We’ve long encouraged readers to be skeptical of viral claims, and make good use of the delete key when a chain email hits their inboxes. In December 2007, we launched our Ask FactCheck feature, where we answer readers’ questions, the vast majority of which concern viral emails, social media memes and the like. Our first story was about a made-up email that claimed then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi wanted to put a “windfall” tax on all stock profits of 100 percent and give the money to, the email claimed, “the 12 Million Illegal Immigrants and other unemployed minorities.” We called it “a malicious fabrication” — that’s “fake news” in today’s parlance.
In 2008, we tried to get readers to rid their inboxes of this kind of garbage. We described a list of red flags — we called them Key Characteristics of Bogusness — that were clear tip-offs that a chain email wasn’t legitimate. Among them: an anonymous author; excessive exclamation points, capital letters, and misspellings; entreaties that “This is NOT a hoax!”; and links to sourcing that does not support or completely contradicts the claims being made.
Those all still hold true, but fake stories — as in, completely made-up “news” — has grown more sophisticated, often presented on a site designed to look (sort of) like a legitimate news organization. Still, we find it’s easy to figure out what’s real and what’s imaginary if you’re armed with some critical thinking and fact-checking tools of the trade.
Here’s our advice on how to spot a fake:
1- Consider the source.
2- Read beyond the headline.
3- Check the author.
4- What’s the support?
5- Check the date.
6- Is this some kind of joke?
7- Check your biases.
8- Consult the experts."...
Please, refer to the attached website link for more details on the thread...
http://www.factcheck.org/2016/11/how-to-spot-fake-news/
Look at this publication
https://web.stanford.edu/~gentzkow/research/fakenews.pdf
I think that the issue has to be divided in two: One concern is political figures trying to make news agencies that try to point at the flaws of their policies seem illegitimate (Accusing them of "Fake News')
The other way to look at it is how leaders (the same as above perhaps) manufacture fake news, especially those aimed to demonize their rivals
Hope this helps
https://web.stanford.edu/~gentzkow/research/fakenews.pdf
Hi Ian,
Great question; I'm also surveying the literature. Here's a few papers that address the question from a philosophical (epistemology, ethics) point of view:
Rini, Regina. 2017. Fake News and Partisan Epistemology. Kennedy Institute of Ethics Journal 27 (2S): E-43-E-64. doi:10.1353/ken.2017.0025
Dentith, M. R. X. 2017. The Problem of Fake News. Public Reason 8 (1–2): 65–79. doi:10.1073/pnas.1719005114.
Smart, Paul R. 2018. (Fake?) News Alert: Intellectual Virtues Required for Online Knowledge! Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective 7 (2): 45–55.
Faulkner, Paul. “Fake Barns, Fake News.” Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective 7, no. 6 (2018): 16-21.
Goldman, Alvin I.(draft). FREE SPEECH, FAKE NEWS, AND DEMOCRACY, 1–38.
The problem of fake news in Serbia is seen through the prism of political propaganda machine as well
Problem of fake news also has a political angle where political propaganda machine allows the authorities to hold their positions of power. Despite media laws and attempts to self-regulate, most media today have simply become a tool for politicians...
https://point.zastone.ba/the-problem-of-fake-news-in-serbia-is-seen-through-the-prism-of-political-propaganda-machine-as-well/
6 tips to help you detect fake science news
There are plenty of reasons a science story might not be sound. Quacks and charlatans take advantage of the complexity of science, some content providers cannot tell bad science from good and some politicians peddle fake science to support their positions.
If the science sounds too good to be true or too wacky to be real, or conveniently supports a contentious cause, then you might want to check its veracity.Here are six tips to help you detect fake science...
https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/seeing-through-fake-science/2021/04/16/4697caea-86a8-11eb-82bc-e58213caa38e_story.html
How to be a Research Detective – screening studies for fake research
https://publish.viostream.com/play/nuotxoodoa4bjs
The transformation of printed media into digital environment and the extensive use of social media have changed the concept of media literacy and people’s habit of consuming news. While this faster, easier, and comparatively cheaper opportunity offers convenience in terms of people's access to information, it comes with a certain significant problem: Fake News. Due to the free production and consumption of large amounts of data, fact-checking systems powered by human efforts are not enough to question the credibility of the information provided, or to prevent its rapid dissemination like a virus...
The solution is to develop automated mechanisms that can check the credibility of digital content served in libraries without manual validation...
Article Automated Fake News Detection in the Age of Digital Libraries
A project of a Ukrainian media NGO, founded in 2014 by Ukrainian university professors and students, is working to refute Russia’s propaganda and fake news about the ongoing war in Ukraine. Part academic research, part journalistic mission, StopFake’s aim is simple: truth...
https://www.universityworldnews.com/post.php?story=20230216125931198&utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=GLNL0727
Deepfakes, trolls and cybertroopers: how social media could sway elections in 2024
"Faced with data restrictions and harassment, researchers are mapping out fresh approaches to studying social media’s political reach...
Despite ongoing challenges, the community of researchers trying to assess the impacts of social media on society has continued to grow, says Rebekah Tromble, a political-communication researcher at George Washington University in Washington DC.
And behind the scenes, researchers are exploring different ways of working, says Starbird, such as developing methods to analyse videos shared online and to work around difficulties in accessing data. “We have to learn how to get insights from more limited sets of data,” she says. “And that offers the opportunity for creativity.”..."
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-024-00274-7
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