[visionlist] CFP: Identifying, Tracking, and Fact-Checking Misinformation

[Ricky J. Sethi]

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CFP: Frontiers in Big Data Special Issue Research Topic

Topic: Fact-Checking Misinformation
Title: Identifying, Tracking, and Fact-Checking Misinformation

Abstract Submission URL: https://www.frontiersin.org/research-topics/16605/identifying-tracking-and-fact-checking-misinformation
Abstract Submission Deadline: January 22, 2021
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Background:

The phenomena of fake news and the rise of "alternative facts" often dominate news cycles globally. Although these terms are new, reliance upon propaganda and misinformation predates the Internet, not just in politics but in communication exchange in general. Indeed, the proliferation of fake news in today’s digital world has moved beyond a specific election cycle and now commands headlines all over the world. Misinformation, disinformation, and propaganda are shared on social networks and spread like wildfire across all sorts of media using automation technologies like social bots and coordinated activities orchestrated by malicious entities. Being able to distinguish credible information from misinformation is essential to curbing the propagation and amplification of such disinformation.


Goal:

As the spread of misinformation threatens to become a virtual pandemic, tools are needed to combat disinformation analogously to the way we mitigate biological pathogens: approaches to identify, track, and verify potential misinformation. We therefore invite novel theoretical, experimental, survey-based, substantial works-in-progress, and industry or military experience contributions to a special issue of Frontiers in Big Data titled "Identifying, Tracking, and Fact-Checking Misinformation."

This issue covers challenging topics in fact-checking misinformation using automated, computational, and crowd-sourced approaches to fact-checking, including provenance and sources, critical thinking, knowledge graphs, network flows, social media proliferation, emotion, viral models, contexts, satire, manipulated content, imposter content, deep fakes, social bots, malicious actors, reporting and tracking of real world events, rating and reviewing systems, recommendation systems, and more. 

We especially solicit approaches which leverage the massive amount of data, both structured and unstructured, that is utilized in the intelligent analysis of user-generated content as well as the understanding and establishment of social relationships in the development of potential insights, policies, and strategies for dealing with misinformation.
We also encourage submissions relating to the transmission and countering of misinformation surrounding coronavirus and vaccines, psychological and legal considerations in the spread and mitigation of misinformation, as well as communication, political, and military applications of tracking and fact-checking misinformation in various forms, including hoaxes, satires, conspiracy theories, and fake news.

Guest Co-Editors:
* Ricky J. Sethi: http://research.sethi.org/ricky/
* Md Atiqur Rahman Ahad: http://ahadvisionlab.com/
* Prashant Shiralkar: https://sites.google.com/site/shiralkarprashant/ 
* Onur Varol: http://www.onurvarol.com/ 

Keywords:
misinformation, fact-checking, fake new, political communication, intelligent analysis, user-generated content

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#misinformation, #factchecking, #fakenews, #politicalcommunication, #intelligentanalysis, #usergeneratedcontent