As concerns over fake news have risen, so too have the number of tools designed to combat the spread of misinformation online. Two of the biggest received an upgrade recently.
Both Hoaxy and Botometer are tools developed by researchers at Indiana University, and the researchers behind them have upgraded them recently to help people understand the fake news landscape more effectively.
“The majority of the changes to Hoaxy and Botometer are specifically designed to make the tools more usable by journalists and average citizens,” the researchers say. “You can now easily detect when information is spreading virally, and who is responsible for its spread.”
Hoaxy is a search engine that highlights how stories from low-credibility sources on social networks such as Twitter. Botometer, by contrast, is an app that rates Twitter users on the likelihood that they’re a bot.
So what’s new?
The updates to both tools have given them a few extra features. For instance, Hoaxy users can now understand which stories are currently trending on Twitter, even when the source is a low-credibility one. It also highlights the proportion of those spreading each story are bots.
The update to Botometer, by contrast, uses some new machine learning to enable users to better identify Twitter bots. The upgrade also integrates the platform more effectively with Hoaxy to give users a better idea of how much of any trend is caused by humans versus automated bots.
The team reveal that both applications are currently processing hundreds of thousands of online queries every day. It’s supported a number of academic papers on fake news, including studies published in PLOS ONE, Science and the Pew Research Center.
Gamifying learning
In addition to the updates for Hoaxy and Botometer, the team also launched Fakey, a new game available on both web and mobile platforms to inform players about fake news, clickbait, conspiracy theories and junk science.
It’s similar to another game recently launched by researchers at the University of Cambridge. The game puts the player in the shows of the budding propagandist to hopefully give an insight into the strategies and motivations behind misinformation campaigns. The aim is to provide a level of ‘immunity’ to fake news.
Players are tasked with stoking anger and mistrust in the public by manipulating digital news and social media. They have a range of tactics available, from deploying Twitter bots to photoshopping evidence. With each tactic deployed, their ‘credibility score’ is updated as they try and remain as persuasive as possible whilst stretching the truth to its limits.
All of these tools promise to help us as individuals, organizations and as a society to understand and tackle the creation and spread of misinformation online.
