Social Media

During the months leading up to the 2018 presidential election , students at the Énois School of Journalism in São Paulo and the youth of data_lab in Rio checked weekly for facts and rumors that could impact on the electoral process, Whatsapp networks - mostly young and peripheral. The checks were published in small "capsules", in text and image, and distributed back by WhatsApp in a reverse logistics of the message, seeking to pierce a network bubble, which is private and closed.

At Cazadores de Fake News we analyze and verify news related to Venezuela, disseminated through social networks and instant messaging. The results that we publish are the result of collaborative work carried out in the Fake News Telegram Cazadores forum, a group open to citizen participation and in constant growth.

CaptainFact is a collaborative fact-checking tool for YouTube videos. People help each others to verify informations in this way:
1. Video is added on the website.
2. Statements are extracted from the video.
3. Fact-checkers confirm or refute the statements.

BotSlayer is an application that helps track and detect potential manipulation of information spreading on Twitter. The tool is developed by the Observatory on Social Media at Indiana University --- the same lab that brought to you Botometer and Hoaxy.

Botometer (formerly BotOrNot) checks the activity of a Twitter account and gives it a score based on how likely the account is to be a bot. Higher scores are more bot-like. Increasing evidence suggests that a growing amount of social media content is generated by autonomous entities known as social bots. Many social bots perform useful functions, but there is a growing record of malicious applications of social bots.

This project uses advanced machine learning techniques to detect propaganda accounts on Twitter.

(Copied from website)

In 2018 we launched Bot Sentinel to help fight disinformation and targeted harassment. We believe Twitter users should be able to engage in healthy online discourse without inauthentic accounts, toxic trolls, foreign countries, and organized groups manipulating the conversation.

Africa Check is a non-partisan organisation that exists to promote accuracy and honesty in public debate and the media in Africa. Africa Check not only serves as a fact-checking source for multiple countries on the continent, but also provides how-to tips that teach private citizens to perform fact checking on their own. Devised by the non-profit media development arm of the international news agency AFP, Africa Check is an independent organisation with offices in Johannesburg, Nairobi, Lagos and Dakar.

A Field Guide to “Fake News” and Other Information Disorders explores the use of digital methods to study false viral news, political memes, trolling practices and their social life online. It responds to an increasing demand for understanding the interplay between digital platforms, misleading information, propaganda and viral content practices, and their influence on politics and public life in democratic societies. The guide is freely available via the link in the website.

In the United States, during the electoral process that brought Donald Trump to the presidency, more than 10 million potential voters had access to false news spread on social networks. The project intentionally takes up the name that a group of young people used in the quake to inform and serve as a bridge between those who needed help and those who could provide it. Verificado19S is a response to the absence or inefficiency of the government and the spread of false data, which only served to confuse, generate fear or divert the help that was needed.