Industry-academic alliance to combat ‘fake news’

AFP 07 April 2017

A global alliance of tech industry and academic organisations last week unveiled plans to work together to combat the spread of ‘fake news’ and improve public understanding of journalism, reports AFP.

The News Integrity Initiative is being launched with US$14 million from Facebook, the Ford Foundation, Mozilla and others, and will be based at the City University of New York’s journalism school, which will coordinate research, projects and events.

Fake news became a serious issue in the US election campaign, when clearly fraudulent stories circulated on social media, potentially swaying some voters. Concerns have been raised since then about hoaxes and misinformation affecting elections in Europe, with investigations showing how ‘click farms’ generate revenue from online advertising using made-up news stories.
Full report on the Taipei Times site

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