BEGIN:VCALENDAR VERSION:2.0 PRODID:-//Talks.cam//talks.cam.ac.uk// X-WR-CALNAME:Talks.cam BEGIN:VEVENT SUMMARY:Detecting the "\;Fake News"\; Before It Was Even Written\, Media Literacy\, and Flattening the Curve of the COVID-19 Infodemic - Pre slav Nakov (Qatar Computing Research Institute (QCRI)\, HBKU) DTSTART:20210212T120000Z DTEND:20210212T130000Z UID:TALK157306@talks.cam.ac.uk CONTACT:Georgi Karadzhov DESCRIPTION:Join Zoom Meeting\nhttps://cl-cam-ac-uk.zoom.us/j/99454574881? pwd=d3dtS2Rka3NlTjNYRjc5bHFBOGc2UT09\n\nMeeting ID: 994 5457 4881\nPasscod e: 720917\n\nGiven the recent proliferation of disinformation online\, the re has been growing research interest in automatically debunking rumors\, false claims\, and "fake news". A number of fact-checking initiatives have been launched so far\, both manual and automatic\, but the whole enterpri se remains in a state of crisis: by the time a claim is finally fact-check ed\, it could have reached millions of users\, and the harm caused could h ardly be undone.\n\nAn arguably more promising direction is to focus on an alyzing entire news outlets\, which can be done in advance\; then\, we cou ld fact-check the news before it was even written: by checking how trustwo rthy the outlet that has published it is (which is what journalists actual ly do). We will show how we do this in the Tanbih news aggregator (http:// www.tanbih.org/)\, which aims to limit the impact of "fake news"\, propaga nda and media bias by making users aware of what they are reading\, thus p romoting media literacy and critical thinking\, which are arguably the bes t way to address disinformation in the long run. In particular\, we develo p media profiles that show the general factuality of reporting\, the degre e of propagandistic content\, hyper-partisanship\, leading political ideol ogy\, general frame of reporting\, stance with respect to various claims a nd topics\, as well as audience reach and audience bias in social media.\n \nAnother important observation is that the term "fake news" misleads peop le to focus exclusively on factuality\, and to ignore the other half of th e problem: the potential malicious intent. Thus\, we detect the use of spe cific propaganda techniques in text\, e.g.\, appeal to emotions\, fear\, p rejudices\, logical fallacies\, etc. We will show how we do this in the Pr ta system (https://www.tanbih.org/prta)\, another media literacy tool\, wh ich got the Best Demo Award (Honorable Mention) at ACL-2020\; an associate d shared task got the Best task award (Honorable Mention) at SemEval-2020. \n\nFinally\, at the time of COVID-19\, the problem of disinformation onli ne got elevated to a whole new level as the first global infodemic. While fighting this infodemic is typically thought of in terms of factuality\, t he problem is much broader as malicious content includes not only "fake ne ws"\, rumors\, and conspiracy theories\, but also promotion of fake cures\ , panic\, racism\, xenophobia\, and mistrust in the authorities\, among ot hers. Thus\, we argue for the need of a holistic approach combining the pe rspectives of journalists\, fact-checkers\, policymakers\, social media pl atforms\, and society as a whole\, and we present our recent research in t hat direction (https://mt.qcri.org/covid19disinformationdetector/).\n\n--- ---\n\n\nBio:\n\nDr. Preslav Nakov is a Principal Scientist at the Qatar C omputing Research Institute (QCRI)\, HBKU\, where he leads the Tanbih mega -project (developed in collaboration with MIT)\, which aims to limit the e ffect of "fake news"\, propaganda and media bias by making users aware of what they are reading\, thus promoting media literacy and critical thinkin g. He received his PhD degree in Computer Science from the University of C alifornia at Berkeley\, supported by a Fulbright grant. Dr. Preslav Nakov is President of ACL SIGLEX\, Secretary of ACL SIGSLAV\, and a member of th e EACL advisory board. He is also member of the editorial board of a numbe r of journals including Computational Linguistics\, TACL\, CS&L\, NLE\, AI Communications\, and Frontiers in AI. He authored a Morgan & Claypool bo ok on Semantic Relations between Nominals and two books on computer algori thms. He published 250+ research papers\, and he was named among the top 2 % of the world's most-cited in the career achievement category\, part of a global list compiled by Stanford University. He received a Best Long Pape r Award at CIKM'2020\, a Best Demo Paper Award (Honorable Mention) at ACL' 2020\, a Best Task Paper Award (Honorable Mention) at SemEval'2020\, a Bes t Poster Award at SocInfo'2019\, and the Young Researcher Award at RANLP ’2011. He was also the first to receive the Bulgarian President's John A tanasoff award\, named after the inventor of the first automatic electroni c digital computer. Dr. Nakov's research was featured by over 100 news out lets\, including Forbes\, Boston Globe\, Aljazeera\, DefenseOne\, Business Insider\, MIT Technology Review\, Science Daily\, Popular Science\, Fast Company\, The Register\, WIRED\, and Engadget\, among others. LOCATION:Virtual (Zoom) END:VEVENT END:VCALENDAR