Because Tweets Are Not Always the Truth
May 8, 2013
Can emerging technologies aid in filtering out the untrusted and unverified chattering of the masses? Using the recent Boston Marathon bombings as an example where this kind of technology would be useful, the MIT Technology Review article “Preventing Misinformation from Spreading through Social Media” explains some possible solutions on their radar.
When people play detective on Reddit and other social media sites with the goal of sharing information quickly as opposed to ensuring accuracy, false accusations can be made – such as the case with Sunil Tripathi. Researchers from Masdar Institute of Technology and the Qatar Computing Research Institute plan to launch Verily as a platform that could combat situations like that one.
The article states:
“Verily aims to enlist people in collecting and analyzing evidence to confirm or debunk reports. As an incentive, it will award reputation points—or dings—to its contributors. Verily will join services like Storyful that use various manual and technical means to fact-check viral information, and apps such as Swift River that, among other things, let people set up filters on social media to provide more weight to trusted users in the torrent of posts following major events.”
This will be an interesting sector to watch as there is a growing awareness of social media’s distortional lever.
Megan Feil, May 08, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Beyond Search
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