IBM Call for Code 2020
AntiVirals – News Disinfectant Chatbot
The Problem
MISINFORMATION IS SPREADING FAST, SUCH AS:
- Fake "cures" or "preventative treatments" for Covid-19 are being promoted and sold online, including "drinkable" silver, which can turn people's skin irreversibly blue.
- Conspiracy theories about the origins of the virus, that can lead people to ignore official advice on social distancing and washing hands and have also motivated attacks on 5G mobile network masts.
- Racial/religious hatred - that certain ethnic groups are deliberately spreading the virus or are responsible for the creation of the virus.
- In the short space of time that volunteers have been active, hundreds of pieces of misinformation have already been found, recorded, and reported. 63 inadvertent spreaders of misinformation have been tweeted at by volunteers, 13 of whom replied or deleted their tweet.
Among people who have been exposed to falsehoods about the virus, two thirds (66%) are seeing it every day. Ofcom's research also shows that:
- Most people (55%) are ignoring false claims about coronavirus. Fifteen per cent are using fact-checking tips from the media, such as the BBC's website, while a similar proportion (13%) are double-checking with friends and family. One in 14 people are forwarding on false or misleading information about the virus.
- Many people (40%) are finding it hard to know what is true or false about the virus. This rises to more than half (52%) of 18-24-year-olds.
- Younger people are following official advice less closely. Virtually all people who took part in the survey said they are closely following the official advice to practice social distancing (98%); only go outside for essential reasons (97%); and wash their hands regularly (96%). However, only 65% of people said they were following handwashing advice very closely, and this falls to 43% among 18-24s.
Here is how we are planning to take on the fake news with IBM Watson! 📖🖥https://youtu.be/TnksZJwHZOE
Existing Solutions:
International Fact-Checking Network chat bot 🤖
+1 (727) 2912606 * Search for fact checks * Latest fact checks * Tips to fight misinformation * Find fact-checkers near you
Shortcomings:
- Not intelligent
- User gets only related searches and facts
- Limited to chat platform
- Voice interface option not available.
Fake News Detector
🤖Flag and Detect Fake News with the help of AI
https://fakenewsdetector.org/en
Shortcomings:
- Limited accessibility
- User needs to install extensions and visit a portal.
- Not tailored for chat and social media platforms.
- No mobile and voice interface options
Our Solution:
Since the news are spread on messenger applications like Whatsapp, Telegram and social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, etc., we have created a IBM Watson assistant chatbot that can be deployed on these platforms through which fake news can be identified instantly.
The automated news validation algorithm makes use of the available state of the art solutions to distinguish the fake news from the real ones – like FakeNewsNet by Harvard, Twitter search API, Discovery News and human curated APIs.
We have integrated the Watson Assistant with the social media and collaboration platforms and plan to integrate with the major chat platforms with support from IBM.
This way, the solution will be the closest to the problem domain and this is the closest anyone has ever addressed the problem.
We have also added the voice based interface to allow the validation by audio and voice. We also plan to add image and video fake news detection, as a major share of fake news are also in image and video domain.