Burst the Filter Bubble: Towards an Integrated Tool

Formation of filter bubbles is known as a risk for democracy and can bring negative consequences like polarisation of the society, users’ tendency to extremist viewpoints, and the proliferation of fake news. Previous studies, including prescriptive studies, focused on limited aspects of filter bubbles. The current study aims to propose a model for an integrated tool that assists users in avoiding filter bubbles in social networks. To this end, a systematic literature review has been adopted and 571 papers in six top-ranked scientific databases have been identified. After excluding irrelevant studies and an in-depth study of the remaining papers, a classification of research studies is proposed. This classification is then used to propose an overall architecture for an integrated tool that synthesises all previous studies and proposes new features for avoiding filter bubbles. The study explains the components and features of the proposed architecture and describes their focus on content and agents

Deliberative democracy could be used to combat fake news – but only if it operates offline

Disinformation, fake news, and online ‘filter bubbles’ all undermine the prospects for shared political reasoning, and increase polarisation. Clara Wikforss argues that the principles of deliberative democracy can offer a means to counter these problems, but inherent flaws in social media mean that this form of participation must be in-person and not just online

Multidimensional news quality: A comparison of crowdsourcing and nichesourcing

In the age of fake news and of filter bubbles, assessing the quality of information is a compelling issue: it is important for users to understand the quality of the information they consume online. We report on our experiment aimed at understanding if workers from the crowd can be a suitable alternative to

Funkcija i važnost organizacija za provjeru činjenica u eri lažnih vijesti: Teyit.org, primjer iz Turske

The recent increase in usage of concepts such as ‘fake news’ or ‘post-truth’ reveals the importance of digital literacy especially on social media. In the digital era, people’s views on different topics are attempted to be manipulated with disinformation and fake news. Fake content is rapidly replacing the reality among new media users. It is stated with concepts such as ‘filter bubbles’ and ‘echo chambers’ that there is a greater tendency for people to be fed with content that is ideologically appropriate to their own views and to believe in fake news in this content. This article analyzes the structure and functioning of fact-checking organizations in the context of preventing propagation of fake news and improving digital literacy. The research is based on content analysis of verification activities of the fact-checking organization Teyit.org, which is a member of International Fact-Checking Network in Turkey, between January 1 and June 31, 2018. By conducting in-depth interviews with the verification team, propagation of fake news on social networks, fact-checking processes and their methods of combating fake news are revealed. Our article found that fake content spreading specifically through the Internet predominantly consists of political issues.Sve veća upotreba pojmova kao što su „lažne vijesti“ ili „post-istina“ otkriva koliko je važna digitalna pismenost, osobito na društvenim mrežama. U digitalnoj eri mišljenja ljudi o pojedinim temama pokušavaju se mijenjati dezinformacijama i lažnim vijestima, pa korisnici novih medija sve više prihvaćaju lažne vijesti kao stvarnost. Pojmovi kao što su „mjehurići filtri“ (engl. filter bubbles) i „komore odjeka“ (engl. echo chambers) ukazuju na tendenciju da se ljude hrani sadržajem koji je ideološki u skladu s njihovim pogledima i koji podržava lažne vijesti. Ovaj rad analizira strukturu i funkcioniranje organizacija za provjeru činjenica u kontekstu prevencije propagiranja lažnih vijesti i poboljšanja digitalne pismenosti. Istraživanje je temeljeno na analizi sadržaja verifikacijskih aktivnosti organizacije za provjeru činjenica Teyit.org u Turskoj, članice Međunarodnog udruženja za provjeru činjenica, i to tijekom šest mjeseci, od 1. siječnja do 31. lipnja 2018. S članovima tima za provjeru činjenica provedeni su dubinski intervjui kako bi se otkrili procesi provjere činjenica i metode za borbu s lažnim vijestima. Ovaj rad pokazuje da se lažni sadržaj koji se širi internetom u najvećoj mjeri tiče politike

Fake news diffusion on digital channels: An analysis of attack strategies, responsibilities, and corporate responses

In recent years, the phenomenon of fake news has aroused a growing interest in the academic debate because of its capability to easily spread among digital channels, such as social media platforms, and reach and deceive an increasingly large target of digital users. In this scenario, fake news threatens the credibility of organizations, their products and services, the trust relationship between organizations and consumers, as well as the organizations internal community. Nowadays, organizations are subject to the risk of losing the control of their corporate communication strategies due to phenomena such as the spread of fake news. Hence, although in academic literature there is a growing interest about the impact of fake news, scholars agree that more research is needed to provide a better understanding of the fake news phenomenon. Indeed, hereto no study has focused on how fake news attacks the corporate reputation with reference to the different phases of the fake news life cycle. The aim of this PhD thesis is threefold: (1) to investigate how fake news, during its life cycle, attacks corporate reputation; (2) to identify the key actors involved in the stemming process of fake news and their role; (3) to identify the more effective response strategies of organizations threatened by fake news. To achieve the aim of this exploratory research, a mixed-method approach was adopted. In particular, a qualitative content analysis was conducted on a database of 454 fake news headlines; four longitudinal case studies were analyzed; a survey on a sample of Italian citizens was conducted to investigate their perception and the more effective response strategies of the organizations attacked by fake news. Findings of this research identify two types of borrowed credibility on which fake news leverages and two thematic clusters that characterize them. By crossing these dimensions, four different ideal types of fake news attack strategies emerged. Moreover, the results of this research highlight the weakness of the role of fact checkers, which are unable to access the filter bubbles in which fake news rapidly spreads – fact checkers and fake news branch out on two parallel channels, without crossing each other, and reaching different targets, by representing an ethical challenge for digital platforms such as social media. Finally, the findings of the survey show that it is a widespread and prevailing opinion between Italians that openness and transparency should be the key values of the response strategies. As a matter of fact, the clear answer from the survey respondents is that the best response strategy for the organization attacked by fake news is to be available in providing timely information

We are the Change that we Seek: Information Interactions During a Change of Viewpoint

There has been considerable hype about filter bubbles and echo chambers influencing the views of information consumers. The fear is that these technologies are undermining democracy by swaying opinion and creating an uninformed, polarised populace. The literature in this space is mostly techno-centric, addressing the impact of technology. In contrast, our work is the first research in the information interaction field to examine changing viewpoints from a human-centric perspective. It provides a new understanding of view change and how we might support informed, autonomous view change behaviour. We interviewed 18 participants about a self-identified change of view, and the information touchpoints they engaged with along the way. In this paper we present the information types and sources that informed changes of viewpoint, and the ways in which our participants interacted with that information. We describe our findings in the context of the techno-centric literature and suggest principles for designing digital information environments that support user autonomy and reflection in viewpoint formation