Exposing, Examining and Intervening Fake News
Fake news is not new. Fake instances have been circulating the globe, causing fear, hatred, and misconceptions to its intended audiences. This, in turn, has led to widespread destruction causing harm to humankind. The term regained its legitimacy after being named word of the year by Collins in 2017. However, earlier references to the word seem to misfit in the current scenario. Past studies have used the term to define related but distinct types of content, including satires, news parody, and news propaganda. However, current literature identifies fake news as false stories propagating on social media, particularly with an intent to discredit news organizations’ critical reporting, further muddying discourse around fake news. As the scourge of fake news continues to plague our information ecosystem, there is a dire need to look for solutions that can identify the false content and are robust enough to adapt to the time invariability. This talk reviews different terminologies used interchangeably with the term fake news. We provide concrete definitions and examples to familiarise the audience with the distinct characteristics of each type. We also discuss a list of the existential fake news datasets and present exhaustive literature on the detection and intervention methods of fake news. We also intend to discuss the gaps and solutions we identified. We conclude by providing some potential directions we believe are the need of the hour.
