Fake News and other AI Challenges for the News Media in the 21st Century

Vienna, Austria 29/30 November 2018

LT-INNOVATE.ORG

www.liatwork.com

#fak

enew

s

#LIA01

2 | www.liatwork.com

CONSIDER THE SOURCEClick away from the story to investigate the site, its mission and its contact info.

READ BEYONDHeadlines can be outrageous in an effort

to get clicks. What’s the whole story?

CHECK THE AUTHORDo a quick search on the author. Are

they credible? Are they real?

SUPPORTING SOURCES?Click on those links. Determine if the info given actually supports the story.

CHECK THE DATEReposting old news stories doesn’t

mean they’re relevant to current events.

IS IT A JOKE?If it is too outlandish, it might be satire. Research the site and author to be sure.

CHECK YOUR BIASESConsider if your own beliefs could

affect your judgement.

ASK THE EXPERTSAsk a librarian, or consult a

fact-checking site.

International Federation of Library Associations and InstitutionsWith thanks to www.FactCheck.org

2 | www.liatwork.com www.liatwork.com | 3

Language Intelligence in Fake News Detection

The news production and security industries are undergoing a growing threat from fake news across every media, as are all organisations where accurate, time-bound news are critical to their business

and security. The threat is two-fold. On the one hand, it is due to the ubiquity of digital news sites and an avid readership whose built-in biases are being fed by advertising that can in turn fund the fake news

producers; on the other hand, it is fuelled by digital tools that make it easier to produce such fake content automatically on a massive scale over the internet and especially through the social media. The majority of content

concerned by the fake news syndrome is textual in nature, whether addressed to readers, viewers or listeners. Fake images associated with information sources also play a large role in purveying false information. Text is massively varie-

gated in form and comes in different channels and languages. This adds complexity to the task of fake news identification.

Is there a reliable automatable decision procedure for identifying the truth or falsity of news items, and can it be integrated into a standard technology stack?

The aim of this workshop is to present various use cases that address the fake news problem using Language Intelligence and open up broader discussion into how LI can extend its applicability within the news and intelligence industries in their effort to track down fake information.

LANGUAGE INTELLIGENCE PROCESSES CENTRAL IN FAKE NEWS DETECTION

Text & Voice Search, e.g. Searching online for news and facts about news entities; Searching other journalists’ stories and sources to understand news stories; Searching voice streams for all of the above (voice search); Identifying entities & actions in large text corpora; Fact-checking.

Sentiment Analysis: Evaluating sentiment in social media streams around news topics; evaluating spoken content reliability from voice quality & psychographics.

Voice Transcription: Transcribing spoken stories from recordings, podcasts or radio into written form for fake news evaluation.

Captioning: When publishing spoken news stories online, either to be audience-inclusive or for foreign language understanding.

Translation: Translating content from a foreign language to be used in a news story (gisting) or translating news content to evaluate reliability of the material.

Text Generation: Create readable texts automatically on the basis of a numerical data source such as financial data, sports results, etc.; creating texts that describe contents of videos or images.

TYPES OF FAKE NEWS

The misuse of text, images and videos to illustrate facts they have nothing to do with;

The creation and use of false accounts to slander someone’s reputation;

The creation and feeding of false websites that visually resemble real sites;

The creation and spreading of false documents (false evidence);

The use of bots to boost the viral nature of messages.

HOW TO SPOT FAKE NEWS

see IFLA infographic

4 | www.liatwork.com

1 29 November 2018

1330 Registration & Coffee

1400 WelcomeGari Owen, EUROSINT, Mark Pfeiffer, SAIL LABS & Philippe Wacker, LT-Innovate

1410 Keynote: Newsroom Technology in 2020 - The Singularity is Not NearVincent Tripodi, Associated Press

1440Enabling Journalists through Multilingual Media MonitoringAndrew Secker, BBC News Labs

1500 Beyond Identifying, Tracking, Blocking and Debunking: the Impact Mechanisms of DisinformationKristof Varga, Bakamo Social Public

1520 Humans and Machines Learning TogetherStuart W. Shulman, Texifter

1540 Fact or fake? Who cares? Gerald Czech & Markus Glanzer, Red Cross Austria

1600 Coffee Break

1630Keynote: How to Build a Truth EnginePeter Cochrane, University of Suffolk

1700 Affective Communication in Info WarfareAndreas Ventsel, University of Tartu

1720 Russian Information Operations Against Ukraine in 2014-15Vladimir Sazonov, University of Tartu

1740OSINT & AI to Support the Analyst in the Ever More Digital AgeMark Pfeiffer, SAIL LABS

1800The Growing Role of Media in Managing Security CrisesVassilis Kappis, University of Buckingham

1915 Networking Reception in the Riesenrad & Dinner for Confirmed Guests

PROGRAMMED

AY

4 | www.liatwork.com www.liatwork.com | 5

30 November 2018

930Are Fake News Threatening our Democracy?Christian Gsodam, Austrian Presidency of the EU Council

950Natural Language Processing for Automated Fact-CheckingIryna Gurevych & Andreas Hanselowski, Technical University Darmstadt

1010 Coffee Break

1040

Pa r a l l e l Wo r k s h o p s

Solving Ethical & Technical Challenges of Fake News

Gerhard Backfried, SAIL LABSAllan Hanbury, Technical University ViennaNadejda Komendantova, IIASABettina Paur, University of Vienna

Discussion (40 minutes)Moderator: Rosy Wolfe, Industry Expert

The Future of Digital News Journalism

Victoria Ertelthalner, University of ViennaMustafa Isik, KerngedankeFlorian Laszlo, FIBEPChristian Rainer, Profil

Discussion (40 minutes)Moderator: Philippe Wacker, LT-Innovate

1240Workshop results presented by Moderators followed by general discussion

1300 Walking Lunch & Networking

2 DAY

6 | www.liatwork.com

SPEAKERSFor more details, check out our speakers’ page: https://www.liatwork.com/speakers

Gerhard BackfriedHead of Research

SAIL LABS

Florian LaszloSecretary General

FIBEP

Victoria ErtelthalnerTeaching Assistant

The University of Vienna

Mark PfeifferChief Visionary Officer

SAIL LABS

Iryna GurevychProfessor

University Darmstadt

Mustafa IsikCo-founder and CEO

Kerngedanke

Peter CochraneProfessor of Sentient Systems

The University of Suffolk

Gari OwenPresident

EUROSINT Forum

Markus GlanzerDeputy Federal Commander

Austrian Red Cross

Allan HanburyProfessor for Data Intelligence Technical University of Vienna

Vassilis KappisLecturer in Security and

Intelligence Studies The University of Buckingham

Gerald CzechHead of New Media and Campaigning

Austrian Red Cross

Bettina PaurResearcher

The University of Vienna

Christian GsodamAdvisor

Austrian Presidency of the EU Council

Andreas HanselowskiNLP Researcher

Technical University Darmstadt

Nadejda KomendantovaGovernance in Transition

Theme Coordinator IIASA

6 | www.liatwork.com www.liatwork.com | 7

Andy SeckerLanguage Technology Lead

BBC News Labs

Kristof Varga Director

Bakamo Public

Christian RainerPublisher and Editor-in-Chief

PROFIL

Stuart W. Shulman Founder & CEO

Texifter

Andreas VentselSenior Researcher

The University of Tartu

Vladimir SazonovSenior Researcher

The University of Tartu

Vincent TripodiVP, Engineering

Associated Press

Philippe WackerExecutive Director

LT-Innovate

Rosemary WolfeIndustry Expert

THANK YOU TO OUR SPONSORS

The event is supported by

www.viennabusinessagency.at

Global Success Through Cutting-Edge Technology and Superlative Quality www.24translate.de

European Marketing & Financing Serviceswww.emfs.eu

The Portuguese Association of Translators and Interpreterswww.aptrad.pt

The European Open Source Intelligence Forumwww.eurosint.eu