Researchers
call for large-scale scientific investigation into fake news
Indiana University
The indictment of 13
Russians in the operation of a "troll farm" that spread false
information related to the 2016 U.S. presidential election has renewed the
spotlight on the power of "fake news" to influence public opinion.
Now, an Indiana University faculty member who studies the spread of
misinformation online is joining prominent legal scholars, social scientists
and researchers in a global "call to action" in the fight against it.
Filippo Menczer, a
professor in the IU School of Informatics, Computing and Engineering, is a
co-author of a paper published March 8 in the journal Science that
calls for a coordinated investigation into the underlying social, psychological
and technological forces behind fake news.
This is necessary to counteract the
phenomenon's negative influence on society, the authors said.
"What we want to convey most is that fake news is a real problem, it's a tough problem, and it's a problem that requires serious research to solve," said Menczer, who also a member of the IU Center for Complex Networks and Systems Research and founder of the IU Observatory on Social Media, a platform that provides tools for identifying automated social media accounts and analyzing the spread of misinformation across social networks.
The paper includes
estimates that the number of automated "bots" is 60 million on
Facebook and up to 48 million on Twitter, the latter based upon a recent study
by Menczer and colleagues. It also cites an analysis that found the average
American likely encountered one to three fake news stories in the month before
the 2016 U.S. election.
"The spreaders of
fake news are using increasingly sophisticated methods," he added.
"If we don't have enough quantifiable information about the problem, we'll
never be able to design interventions that work. This paper is really a call to
groups across the globe -- academics, journalists and private industry -- to
work together to attack this problem."
This includes the tech
companies that create the platforms used to produce and consume information,
such as Google, Facebook and Twitter. The authors said these companies have an
"ethical and social responsibility transcending market forces" to
contribute to scientific research on fake news.
Additionally, the article's
authors point out that false information affects not only the political sphere
but also areas not previously regarded as political, such as public health
topics like nutrition and vaccinations, as well as the stock market.
They also
said the problem is particularly intractable because some research has found
that repeating a lie to correct it can actually ingrain false information in
the mind.
One solution Menczer
and his colleagues propose is rigorous research into the effectiveness of high
school courses that help students recognize illegitimate new sources.
They also
propose specific changes to the powerful algorithms that increasingly control
people's access to information online.
"The challenge is
there are so many vulnerabilities we don't yet understand and so many different
pieces that can break or be gamed or manipulated when it comes to fake
news," Menczer said. "It's such a complex problem that it must be
attacked from every angle."
Menczer is a prominent
voice on the fight against fake news whose research is frequently cited in
major media outlets and academic conferences. The essay's co-authors include
researchers at high-profile organizations such as Microsoft, Harvard, Yale and
MIT.