Researchers at the Indiana University have launched a powerful new tool called Hoaxy in the fight against fake news. The new tool works by visualizing how claims in the news spread through social networks, and by fact checking some of those claims.
Because of the rapid growth of fake news that sometimes has the power to sway public opinion, many major web services are making changes in order to stop the spread of fake news. For example, Facebook now has a system that allows users to flag stories that they suspect are fake, which are then referred to third-party fact-checkers. Google has recently banned the use of advertisement services on websites that are known to post fake news.
Hoaxy will help move things faster: users can now enter a claim they read into the service’s website and see results that show incidents of the claim in the media and attempts to fact-check it (this is done by independent organizations). Users can also choose to select these results to generate a visualization of how the articles are shared across social media.
The site’s search results also display headlines that appeared on sites known to publish unverified or inaccurate claims based upon lists compiled and published by reputable news and fact-checking organizations.
The researchers emphasize that they’re not the ones who decide what is true and what is false – Hoaxy is there only to help users observe how unverified stories and the fact-checking of those stories spread on public social media. In the end, it’s up to users to evaluate the evidence about a claim.
Source:
Indiana University Bloomington (http://news.indiana.edu/releases/iu/2016/12/iu-hoaxy.shtml)
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