Fake news emerged as an apparent global problem during the 2016 U.S. Presidential election. Addressing it requires a multidisciplinary effort to define the nature and extent of the problem, detect fake news in real time, and mitigate its potentially harmful effects. This will require a better understanding of how the Internet spreads content, how people process news, and how the two interact. We review the state of knowledge in these areas and discuss two broad potential mitigation strategies: better enabling individuals to identify fake news, and intervention within the platforms to reduce the attention given to fake news. The cooperation of Internet platforms (especially Facebook, Google, and Twitter) with researchers will be critical to understanding the scale of the issue and the effectiveness of possible interventions.
翻译:假新闻在2016年美国总统大选期间作为一个明显的全球性问题浮现。应对这一问题需要多学科的努力,以界定问题的性质和范围、实时检测假新闻,并减轻其潜在的有害影响。这要求我们更深入地理解互联网如何传播内容、人们如何处理新闻,以及两者如何相互作用。我们回顾了这些领域的研究现状,并讨论了两种广泛的潜在缓解策略:更好地帮助个人识别假新闻,以及在平台内部进行干预以减少假新闻的关注度。互联网平台(尤其是Facebook、谷歌和Twitter)与研究人员的合作对于理解问题的规模及可能干预措施的有效性至关重要。