fact checking

Since the very beginning of the Internet we have heard the Internet is a great tool for finding information and sharing knowledge. However, it seems with the popularization of social-media the volume of rubbish has increased quickly specially misleading information which became viral. Indeed, fake news is a plague which often receives more engagement than stories from media outlets.

The fake news problem has gained traction on the election of Donald Trump in 2016 in which its is believed had external interference. What started with accusations of spreading fake news has resulted in popular social-media companies such as Twitter and Facebook suspending Trump's account amid accusation of inciting violence in the storming of the United States Capitol in which the protesters believed in fraud on the official result of the 2020 presidential election. At the same time, the social-media Parler, a popular platform among conservatives, went offline due to technical difficulties after vendors, including Amazon, ceased providing support alleging violation of content-moderation rules.

What tech giants are doing

Currently, fighting fake news is a top priority for social-media companies and other tech giants. Facebook relies on the strategy of sending suspicious content to third-party fact-checking partners which may label the content as false, altered or partly false which is stamped on the content and makes it appear less often on time lines. Twitter has announced birdwatch a tool that counts with reputable volunteers to label a content as "true" or "false". Google has its Fact Check tools suite which has an interface to easily search for fact checks and a tool for generating markup to fact-checking articles which helps to understand the context.

Other tools

• 10 Fact-Checking Tools for Competitive Intelligence, Competitor Analysis Research

• Tools for fact checking

• boatos.org

A possible approach

• Q&A sites such as stack overflow is a possible approach towards a new tool to fight fake news. It is possible to use Stack Exchange platform, but it seems it should be proposed to the "Area 51". It is probably not easy because it needs to be approved and probably stack exchange platform should be slightly changed for fact checking context. The overall concept of voting to answers is great, but it should have a way to label an answer saying the claim is "true", "false" and may be "inconclusive".