Eyeballs and AI power the research into how falsehoods travel online
Getting a sense of falsehoods online might sound straightforward, but it isn't. Researchers use state-of-the-art algorithms but it also comes down to lots of scrolling and reading.
What sorts of lies and falsehoods are circulating on the internet? Taylor Agajanian used her summer job to help answer this question, one post at a time. It often gets squishy.
She reviewed a social media post where someone had shared a news story about vaccines with the comment "Hmmm, that's interesting." Was the person actually saying that the news story was interesting, or insinuating that the story isn't true?
Agajanian read around and between the lines often while working at University of Washington's Center for an Informed Public, where she reviewed social media posts and recorded misleading claims about COVID-19 vaccines.
As the midterm election approaches, researchers and private sector firms are racing
