Article from RAND
Countless websites and major social media are flooded with misinformation, often various false written and audio/video content is presented as truth and this brings irreparable problems. It has become difficult to understand what is true and what is not, but exposing false content has become possible with the right tools and techniques.
These tools may be useful to you in combating disinformation:
Adblock Plus
Adblock Plus is an application that blocks ads and websites through the use of filter lists. It automatically whitelists ads that meet the “acceptable ads” standards — so that ads that adhere to the standards can avoid being blocked on this platform. Users can avoid ads by adjusting the default settings. Adblock, which is an ad blocking tool, is also a way for users to protect themselves not only from harmful ads, but also from other harmful sites, including those that spread misinformation.
Bad News
This tool aims to help users understand the techniques involved in spreading misinformation. This game exposes players to fake news tactics used against them by putting them in the position of a fake news leader. Players win by publishing headlines that attract the most followers.
Bot Sentinel
Bot Sentinel is a platform designed to detect and track trollbot and fake Twitter accounts. Bot Sentinel uses machine learning and artificial intelligence to study Twitter accounts, classify them as trustworthy or untrustworthy, and identify botsIt then stores those accounts in a database to track them every day. Developers use the data they collect to explore the effect of bots and their propaganda in discourse and to explore ways to counter the spread of bots-s and the information they share. The classification of fake accounts is a manual process, where hundreds of tweets and retweets are examined during the review process. If an account has a large number of followers and a high percentage of tweets that are misleading and/or factually incorrect, they can classify that account as untrustworthy. This tracking platform muzzle is not affiliated with RAND; it is owned and operated by Bot Sentinel Inc, which you can read more about here: https://botsentinel.com/info/about
BotSlayer
BotSlayer is a tool that helps track and detect potential manipulation of information being spread on Twitter. BotSlayer uses a detection algorithm to identify hashtags, links, accounts, and media that are being amplified in a coordinated manner by bots. Users can view/explore tweets and accounts associated with such amplification on Twitter or search for similar content.
Emergent.Info
Emergent.Info is a website-based tool that tracks, verifies, or debunks rumors and conspiracies online. Rumors are suggested by individuals on the site, and staff then review and determine whether the claim is verified or false.
Fakey
Fakey is an interactive, web-based educational tool designed to improve media literacy. It presents news stories that include features of clickbait, fake news, conspiracy theories, etc. Users are then asked to choose to share, hide, or fact-check the information. The goal is to provide users with hands-on experience in identifying true and false information.
Get-Metadata Viewer
Get-Metadata Viewer is a web-based tool that provides users with metadata for photos, videos, and texts, including location, time, date modified, format, document size, etc.
Iffy Quotient
Iffy Quotient is a web-based tool that uses NewsWhip to search Facebook and Twitter and identify URLs that are known to be biased or frequent reporters of false information. The tool then calculates the percentage of URLs on each site that are “obscure” or known to report false or misleading information.
Video Verification Plugin (InVid)
InVid is a tool that helps verify facts through video verification. The tool provides users with contextual information about videos, image search, video metadata, video copyright information, along with other features to help verify content.
NewsCheck Trust Index
NewsCheck is a web-based platform that performs trustworthiness assessments using a combination of blockchain technology and people to combat fake news. They have a system for managing and distributing content that is deemed trustworthy to consumers. Part of the NewsCheck Platform is the NewsCheck Index, a set of journalistic standards, which is then used to transparently verify news information. This tool also identifies biases. NewsCheck also offers a university guide that allows journalism and data science students to use the platform for free as an experiential learning tool.