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Written by: Deng Yinglin
2020-12-29 14:50
Last update date: 2020-12-29 14:53
The School of Communication of Hong Kong Baptist University announced today (29th) the establishment of Hong Kong's first fact-checking platform operated by an independent academic institution-"Hong Kong Baptist University Fact-Checking Center."
The new center is co-operated by Baptist University scholars, experts and experienced media professionals. It screens about 2,000 online news or information every day, checks for suspicious information spread by the Internet, and provides free fact-checking services for Hong Kong people, hoping to reduce the spread of false news .
In the future, the public can use the mobile app "BU FactCheck" to check whether the advertised news is true or not for free.
The School of Communication, Baptist University launched the "Hong Kong Baptist University Fact-Checking Center".
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Li Wen, associate professor of professional applications at the HKBU School of Communication, explained that under the social movement and the epidemic, Hong Kong has more fake news than other parts of the world. He described the "false information epidemic" as raging in Hong Kong, starting in the second half of 2019. , Baptist University students began to notice the widespread dissemination of fake news, and a telephone survey conducted by an agency commissioned by the HKBU found that among more than 1,000 adult Hong Kong residents, about 43% of the respondents believed that the frequency of fake news in frequently used media was "half "Half", more than two adults believe that there are many fake news, and more than 35% believe that the health impact of new coronary pneumonia is high or very high.
Li Wen said that the "Artificial Intelligence and Media Research Laboratory" and the "Journalism and Society Research Institute" under the School of Communication of HKBU have established the "HKBU Fact Checking Center" platform, hoping to verify the authenticity of news for the public.
The team will start trial operation in September this year. It will first start its work by means of "manual verification". About 12 Baptist University personnel and experts will browse about 2,000 on the Internet every day involving politics, business, health, science and other Online information on social issues, including "Legislative Council", "DQ", "National Testing", "Carrie Lam" and "New Crown Vaccine", etc., and then check suspicious information.
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The online news is endless. The team said that it will decide whether to check the information based on the public interest, the popularity of the information (such as the number of likes and comments), and whether it can be verified. Personal opinions are not within the scope of the check, and the team does not Focus on finding the "true culprit" who spread false information.
Team members will try to conduct on-site investigations, find first-hand information, consult experts, and use alumni network to check. Finally, team members write reports, classifying suspicious content as "true", "partially true", "error" or "unsure" ", made available online for public inspection.
The platform started trial operation in September 2020 and has so far completed checking about 21 suspicious rumors.
(Screenshot of HKBU Fact-Checking Center website)
The team completed the verification of about 21 cases of suspicious madness, of which only 1 case was true, 1 case was uncertain, 16 cases were false, and the remaining 3 cases were partially true.
Many of the 21 cases were information about the epidemic. One of them was "Axel Kahn, a French geneticist, said that if you want to get the new crown vaccine, you must choose a vaccine from China." The HKBU team translated the original words by a French-speaking person. , The discovery was a mistake. Because Kahn only claimed that the Chinese vaccine and the RNA technology vaccine developed by Pfizer Pharmaceuticals, there was no problem with the research and development technology used, and he did not say that he "will definitely choose a Chinese vaccine."
Artificial intelligence will be added to assist in screening and checking
Assistant Professor Zeng Ziying of the School of Communication of HKBU said that during the trial operation of the center, it was found that a large number of repetitive and formatted content appeared in online discussion forums such as Lian Deng, Hong Kong Discussion Board, and even WhatsApp groups, and the most positive and negative ones were The extreme posts are more likely to contain false elements.
At this stage, the team hopes to invite reporters or experts to download the "BU FactCheck" application to join in providing the team with suspected false information, reducing the team's manual screening of information.
Looking to the future, the team is developing a local language-based "fake news research database" supported by artificial intelligence to automatically detect and verify suspicious information that is going viral. In the long term, it hopes to become the third international fact-checking company in the world. Chinese-speaking organization certified by the Alliance (IFCN) partner.
In addition, the team also plans to publish an annual report to examine the current situation of false information in Hong Kong, to help policymakers and the public grasp social trends and fight the spread of misinformation.
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