Human-Misinformation interaction: Understanding the interdisciplinary approach needed to computationally combat false information

Abstract

The prevalence of new technologies and social media has amplified the effects of misinformation on our societies. Thus, it is necessary to create computational tools to mitigate their effects effectively. This study aims to provide a critical overview of computational approaches concerned with combating misinformation. To this aim, I offer an overview of scholarly definitions of misinformation. I adopt a framework for studying misinformation that suggests paying attention to the source, content, and consumers as the three main elements involved in the process of misinformation and I provide an overview of literature from disciplines of psychology, media studies, and cognitive sciences that deal with each of these elements. Using the framework, I overview the existing computational methods that deal with 1) misinformation detection and fact-checking using Content 2) Identifying untrustworthy Sources and social bots, and 3) Consumer-facing tools and methods aiming to make humans resilient to misinformation. I find that the vast majority of works in computer science and information technology is concerned with the crucial tasks of detection and verification of content and sources of misinformation. Moreover, I find that computational research focusing on Consumers of Misinformation in Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) and related fields are very sparse and often do not deal with the subtleties of this process. The majority of existing interfaces and systems are less concerned with the usability of the tools rather than the robustness and accuracy of the detection methods. Using this survey, I call for an interdisciplinary approach towards human-misinformation interaction that focuses on building methods and tools that robustly deal with such complex psychological/social phenomena.