Last year saw the publication of an interesting paper from the EU’s DEBUNKER project, which aims to improve the quality of information given to citizens via the media. The paper put forth the interesting theory that journalists themselves would make the best referees.
The European Commission have been hard at work on the topic however, and recently published a paper providing steps to tackle the spread and impact of misinformation online. The paper outlines an EU-wide Code of Practice on Disinformation alongside both support for independent fact-checkers and tools to help stimulate quality journalism.
The growing role of algorithms
The paper outlines the growing role of algorithms in how we consume news, with roughly 2/3 of news consumers preferring to access news that has been fed to them via algorithm-driven platforms such as search engines or news aggregators. What’s more, the power of these intermediaries has resulted in much of the market power and revenue shifting to them rather than publishers.
The paper suggests that this shift away from direct access to newspapers to indirect and algorithm-driven distribution of news is supporting the rise of fake news, as it sees a mixture of genuine, edited news and both user generated content and deliberately produced misinformation.
Whilst authentic news continues to dwarf the fake kind in terms of volume, the fake news nonetheless travels faster and further on social media. As such it has an outsized impact. There are also concerns over the ability and motivation of platforms to police this, as their income comes via traffic rather than any kind of qualitative metrics.
This has already resulted in diminishing trust in the media, and risks undermining the industry even further as it becomes harder for consumers to distinguish between high-quality sources and fake news.
Policing fake news
The European Media Monitor (EMM) is one tool designed to help understand fake news more effectively. It covers around 300,000 articles every day from the traditional news sites, with the software clustering news into both topics and popular stories.
The team have also been working with the European External Action Service East StratComm Task Force. The group was established to address pro-Kremlin misinformation, and is able to capture trends and ongoing narratives.
There is also work to monitor social networks to determine and detect bot activity, and indeed their influence on the discourse people have with the news.
They are also working on understanding the tonality of fake news. For instance, it’s common for balanced reporting to present both positive and negative aspects of a story, therefore creating neutral tonality. With misinformation however, emotions are often pushed to the extreme. The team are working with journalists, social media managers and policy managers to help them better understand how fake news stories play on our emotions.
Of course, it remains to be seen how influential these strategies prove to be, but with fake news playing an ever growing role in our lives, it’s good that the EC are at least taking action to mitigate its impact.
