| Pheme | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Commercial? | No |
| Type of project | Research |
| Location | EU |
| Owner | European Commission |
| Funding | FP7 project, 36 months, EUR 4.3 M |
| Website | http://www.pheme.eu |
Pheme is a 36-month research project begun in 2014 into establishing the veracity of claims made on the internet. [1]
Unverified content is dominant and prolific in social media messages. While big data typically presents challenges in its information volume, variety and velocity, social media presents a fourth: establishing veracity. The Pheme project aims to analyse content in real time and determine how accurate the claims made in it are. [2] As claims propagate through a social network, each individual chooses whether or not to pass on information, based on how accurate they think it is. Analysing the language used and the spread of information through a network, as well as the spatial and temporal context of the information, is used to build a real-time lie detector for social media. This will help, for example, emergency services (who already integrate social media as part of their alerting and response systems [3] [4] ) to flag potential hoax emergencies. [5]
Evaluating the authority of sources automatically is also a project goal, based on the treatment of the news and information that comes from them. For example, a tweet of a BBC news article would hold more weight than one from an unknown source. [6]
The project is named after the Greek goddess Pheme.
Pheme addresses social media lies in two scenarios: information about healthcare, which can be particularly damaging if wrong, and information used by journalists. [7] [8]
Pheme addresses speculation, controversy, misinformation and disinformation. [8]
The project is a partnership between the University of Sheffield as part of GATE, the University of Warwick, King's College London, Saarland University in Germany and Modul University Vienna. Four companies are also taking part - Atos, iHub Nairobi, Ontotext and swissinfo. Pheme is funded by the EU. [9]
Misinformation is incorrect or misleading information. It differs from disinformation, which is deliberately deceptive and propagated information. Rumors are information not attributed to any particular source, and so are unreliable and often unverified, but can turn out to be either true or false. However, definitions of the terms might vary between cultural contexts. Even if later retracted, misinformation can continue to influence actions and memory.
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Artificial Intelligence for Digital Response (AIDR) is a free and open source platform to filter and classify social media messages related to emergencies, disasters, and humanitarian crises. It has been developed by the Qatar Computing Research Institute and awarded the Grand Prize for the 2015 Open Source Software World Challenge.
Fake news is false or misleading information presented as news. Fake news often has the aim of damaging the reputation of a person or entity, or making money through advertising revenue. Although false news has always been spread throughout history, the term "fake news" was first used in the 1890s when sensational reports in newspapers were common. Nevertheless, the term does not have a fixed definition and has been applied broadly to any type of false information. It's also been used by high-profile people to apply to any news unfavourable to them. Further, disinformation involves spreading false information with harmful intent and is sometimes generated and propagated by hostile foreign actors, particularly during elections. In some definitions, fake news includes satirical articles misinterpreted as genuine, and articles that employ sensationalist or clickbait headlines that are not supported in the text. Because of this diversity of types of false news, researchers are beginning to favour information disorder as a more neutral and informative term.
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Social media use in politics refers to the use of online social media platforms in political processes and activities. Political processes and activities include all activities that pertain to the governance of a country or area. This includes political organization, global politics, political corruption, political parties, and political values.
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