Recent research indicates that misinformation on social media tends to spread much faster than true information. This is particularly an issue in the current crisis where health-related misinformation can have deadly consequences. In this context, access to corrective information such as the information provided by fact-checking organisations is key for fighting the spread of misinformation. Unfortunately, the current fact-checking process is a laborious manual endeavour that requires the identification of what information needs to be fact-checked and how it needs to be disseminated with very little feedback concerning the effectiveness of particula corrective information. This project aims at helping fact-checking organisations and the public to learn about how effective are fact-checking articles, and supporting the identification of important topics and demographics that are susceptible to misinformation spread.
The FC-Observatory providides a service that generates weekly automated reports about misinformation risk areas (e.g., demographics and topics most likely to be affected by misinformation) and indicators about the effectiveness of fact-checking articles in reducing misinformation spread. The observatory provide these reports automatically in the form of automatically generated articles by monitoring fact-checking websites and social media (Twitter) for misinforming documents.
The observatory builds on research work at the Knowledge Media Institute (KMi) at The Open University (UK) and our involvment in multiple European projects related to misinformation (Co-Inform and HERoS) and aims at providing easily readable and up to date reports, These reports are designed to be actionable by fact-checking organisations as well as journalists and health authorities for understanding how effective fact-checking articles are for fighting misinformation spread.
Methodology and FAQ
With this website, we aim to be open and transparent with regards to how we collect and process data and how reports are generated. More information about the methodology can be found in the FAQ section of the website.
Contact
This project is developed and maintained by Grégoire Burel at the Open University. If you have any questions and suggestions about the website, please contact the main developer at the following address: g.burel@open.ac.uk
Acknowledgments
- The FC-Observatory received funding from the Higher Edducation Innovation Fund (HEIF).
- The FC-Observatory has received support from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 101003606 (HERoS).
- The background image used on the homepage/footer of the website was created by Redgirl Lee and submitted for United Nations Global Call Out To Creatives.