information verification during natural disasters

Information Verification During Natural DisastersAbdulfatai Popoola, Dmytro Krasnoshtan, Attila Toth, Victor Naroditskiy, Carlos Castillo, Patrick Meier and Iyad Rahwan

Video: Boston; when the media gets it wrongApril 2013 – Al Jazeera

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Carlos Castillo – chato@acm.orghttp://www.chato.cl/research/

Boston Marathon Bombings

• April 13, 2013 - Bombings• Reddit and 4chan users post photos of

possible suspects• April 18, 2013 – NY Post front-page story

with photos of misidentified suspects• Traditional media blames social media

Video: Social Media and the Boston bombings (edited)April 2013 - CNN

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Carlos Castillo – chato@acm.orghttp://www.chato.cl/research/

Selected quotes from CNN discussion

• “We could wonder if the NY Post would have had this terribly irresponsible coverage if it weren't for Reddit”

• “There were rational people on Reddit and social media”

• “Do you think everything you read on Twitter is real? -No, but it is hard to know”

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Carlos Castillo – chato@acm.orghttp://www.chato.cl/research/

Motivation

• It might be the case that posting funny memes and verifying information using social media require different tools

• The repertoire of mass-interaction mechanisms we know of is quite limited

Context

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Carlos Castillo – chato@acm.orghttp://www.chato.cl/research/

BBC's User-Generated Content Hub

• Contrasting sources from social media• Interviewing individuals• Metrics

– Number of followers, number of reputable followers, history of activity

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Carlos Castillo – chato@acm.orghttp://www.chato.cl/research/

Storyful

• “Social media news agency”• Verification of authenticity of photo and

video evidence• Time of day (shadows), weather,

landmarks, etc.• Accents spoken, ambient noises, etc.

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Carlos Castillo – chato@acm.orghttp://www.chato.cl/research/

Many others

• Truth in social media is a widespread concern

• Journalists– Verify, verify, verify.

• Computer scientists– Apply ML/IR/NLP/etc.

Castillo C, Mendoza M, Poblete B (2011): Information Credibility on Twitter. Proceedings of WWW Conference.

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Carlos Castillo – chato@acm.orghttp://www.chato.cl/research/

Time-critical social mobilization

• DARPA Red Balloon Challenge

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Carlos Castillo – chato@acm.orghttp://www.chato.cl/research/

Recursive incentives

• Winner's strategy: recursive incentives

Pickard G, Pan W, Rahwan I, Cebrian M, Crane R, Madan A, and Pentland A (2011): Time-Critical Social Mobilization. Science 28 October 2011: 334 (6055), 509-512.

Naroditskiy V, Rahwan I, Cebrian M, Jennings NR (2012): Verification in Referral-Based Crowdsourcing. PLoS ONE 7(10): e45924.

Design

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Carlos Castillo – chato@acm.orghttp://www.chato.cl/research/

Crisis → Claim → Evidence

• Crisis

• Claim

• Evidence

Boston Marathon bombings

Link to official police report

An arrest has been made in connection to the bombings

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Carlos Castillo – chato@acm.orghttp://www.chato.cl/research/

Example claims

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Carlos Castillo – chato@acm.orghttp://www.chato.cl/research/

Elements of a claim

Media, if available

LocationTitle, description, dates, tags

Weight of evidence for/against & importance

Open the “submit evidence” dialog.

Promotes this claim

Evidence overlay in claim page

Displays supporting media

Allow users to vote evidence up/down, optionally commenting

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Carlos Castillo – chato@acm.orghttp://www.chato.cl/research/

Other aspects

• Recursive incentives– Recruiting is encouraged

• Point-based system– Gamification– Social recognition / influence

• Subscription to crises, etc.• Platform actively being developed

Closing remarks

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Carlos Castillo – chato@acm.orghttp://www.chato.cl/research/

The interaction mechanisms we know of are quite rudimentary

We can design specialized platforms for mass interaction

for specialized goals

Subscribe at www.veri.ly

Follow @VeriDotLy

Thank you!Carlos Castillo · chato@acm.org

http://www.chato.cl/research/