Here’s an easy prediction: 2018 will bring mounting pressure to develop large-scale, automated responses to online misinformation. And here’s a hopeful one: That pressure will spark an increasingly frank discussion among journalists, policymakers, and platform companies about how to bolster the fact-building institutions that anchor public truth claims.
The quest to automate online fact-checking began well before the furor over so-called “fake news.” Fact-checks have a consistent structure built around discrete data elements — a claim, a claimant, a verdict — that lends itself to marrying human and machine intelligence in interesting ways. One of the first attempts to do this was Truth Goggles, an MIT project that (as initially conceived in 2011) tried to harness the work of professional fact-checkers to build a “magical button” that would instantly flag false claims on any web page.
Since then, fact-checkers and computer scientists have worked together on a string of projects that aim to automate different part of the fact-checking process. One thing these efforts have in common is using automation as an enhancement, rather than a replacement, for journalistic work — as what Bill Adair, writing in these pages past year, called a “force multiplier” to help human fact-checkers keep up with a growing tide of online misinformation.
For example, the most tedious part of a fact-checker’s job is hunting for interesting and important claims to check; a lot of what politicians say in speeches and debates turns out to be vague rhetoric or statements of opinion. ClaimBuster, developed by computer scientists at the University of Texas at Arlington, pores over transcripts to identify and rank factual statements that fact-checkers might want to investigate. (It also retweets checkable claims here.)
Another promising tool, being developed by the U.K.-based Full Fact, scans media feeds to track which politicians and news outlets are repeating claims that have already been debunked. Called Trends, the project is designed to give the fact-checkers a strategic view of the misinformation landscape, so they can target their corrections more effectively. Political journalists will also be able to use it to guide their reporting.
The most powerful automation technology deployed so far is in some ways the simplest: Since 2016, growing numbers of fact-checkers around the world have been using a new tagging scheme, called ClaimReview, that makes their work legible to algorithms. This means that when Google recognizes the claim being searched for — try “the Russia investigation is a made-up story” — it can preview the verdict in a “snippet” at the top of the search results. (The same tagging system lets the Amazon Echo look up answers to factual queries.)
The research involved in efforts like these has started to bring into view the “holy grail” of an end-to-end fact-checking engine that can check at least some kinds of claims in real time. ClaimBuster and Full Fact have trials in the works (see videos here and here) which operate by matching new claims against fact-checkers’ databases — or, in certain cases, by consulting original data sources such as economic statistics or voting records. As Full Fact noted in a 2016 report, the key to these efforts “is to make sure the kinds of resources fact-checkers can rely on are available as structured data that computers can use.”
And that’s what’s most exciting about these initiatives: Designing the systems to automate verification will draw focus back to the public, institutionally sanctioned data sources that human fact-checkers depend on to certify facts about everything from hurricane strength to inflation rates. These include agencies at every level of government — the U.K.’s Office of National Statistics is an ideal-typical example — as well as countless scientific and civil institutions that set standards and produce benchmark data in different areas of research or policy.
Political fact-checkers couldn’t do what they do without these kinds of institutional resources. Of course, neither could Google’s search algorithms, which depend both directly and indirectly on institutional authority reflected in our patterns of clicking and linking online. In fact, professional fact-checking groups act as a kind of social engine — one of many — for translating institutional knowledge into data that computers can work with.
Reflections on the rise of “algorithmic authority” have tended to oppose it to the institutional kind, based on old-world mechanisms like formal credentialing and peer review. The push for “automated” fact-checking may help us to come to terms with a reality that has always been messier than that, making explicit the institutional subsidy that algorithmic intelligence depends on.
Lucas Graves is senior research fellow at the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism and an assistant professor at the University of Wisconsin.
Matt Carlson Attacks on the press will get worse
Lucas Graves From algorithms to institutions
Tanya Cordrey Finally, the seeds of radical reinvention
Yvonne Leow The rise of video messaging
Amy King Let’s amplify visual voice
Dannagal G. Young Stop covering politics as a game
Marcela Donini and Thiago Herdy Collaboration is the way forward for Brazilian journalism
Mike Caulfield Refactoring media literacy for the networked age
Luke O'Neil The end is already here
Jassim Ahmad Thriving on change
Andrew Haeg The year journalists become relationship builders
Errin Haines At the ballot, it’s time to count black women
Ernst-Jan Pfauth Publishing less to give readers more
Zizi Papacharissi Women come back
Alice Antheaume Are you fluent in AI?
Aron Pilhofer We can’t leave the business to the business side any more
Kristen Muller The year of the voter
Adam Thomas Sharing is caring: The year of the mentor
Michelle Ferrier The year of the great reckoning
S. Mitra Kalita The arc of news and audience
Taylor Lorenz Social and media will split
Tim Carmody Watch out for Spotify
Kim Fox Audience teams diversify their approach
Doris Truong Computer vision vs. the Internet vigilantes
Jennifer Brandel and Mónica Guzmán The editorial meeting of the future
Betsy O'Donovan and Melody Kramer Skepticism and narcissism
Imaeyen Ibanga Longform video leads the way
Christopher Meighan Passive partnership is in the rearview
Laura E. Davis Writing answers before you know the question
Corey Johnson The pro-fact resistance
Renée Kaplan The year of quiet adjustments (shhh)
Umbreen Bhatti The trust problem isn’t new
Federica Cherubini The rise of bridge roles in news organizations
Steve Grove The midterms are an opportunity
Sally Lehrman Trust comes first
Miguel Castro The arrival of the impact producer
Caitria O'Neill The new court of public opinion
Damon Krukowski Reviving the alt-weekly soul
Sam Sanders Shine the light on ourselves
Alexios Mantzarlis Moving fake news research out of the lab
Elizabeth Jensen Show your work
Mary Meehan Real lives are at stake in rural areas
Jim Brady With the people, not just of the people
Tamar Charney We get serious about algorithms
Matt Boggie The intellectual equivalent of the Dead Sea
Monika Bauerlein The firehose of falsehood
Joyce Barnathan It will be harder to bury the news
Tracie Powell The muting of underserved voices
C.W. Anderson The social media apocalypse
Matt DeRienzo A recession, then a collapse
Jennifer Coogan The future is female
Nikki Usher The year of The Washington Post
Kyle Ellis Let’s build our way out of this
Lam Thuy Vo Breaking free from the tyranny of the loudest
Sydette Harry Listen to your corner and watch for the hook
Jessica Parker Gilbert Design connects storytelling and strategy
Mary Walter-Brown Show a little vulnerability
Pete Brown Push alerts, personalized
Cory Haik Suffering from realness, pivoting to impact
Gordon Crovitz Serving readers over advertisers
Alan Soon The rise of start of psychographic, micro-targeted media
Alastair Coote The year of self-improvement
Eric Ulken The year local publishers get smart(er) about change
Nicholas Diakopoulos Fortifying social media from automated inauthenticity
Sara M. Watson Feeds will open up to new user-determined filters
Sarah Marshall Loyalty as the key performance indicator
Amie Ferris-Rotman More female reporters abroad (please)
Nicholas Quah Stop talking trash about young people
Molly de Aguiar Good journalism won’t be enough
Jacqui Cheng Retailers move into content
Kawandeep Virdee Zines had it right all along
Hannah Cassius The year of the echo-chamber escapists
Juliette De Maeyer A responsible press criticism
Joanne Lipman Journalists inventing revenue streams
Manoush Zomorodi Self-help as a publishing strategy
Vivian Schiller Pivot to tomorrow
Hossein Derakhshan Television has won
Rasmus Kleis Nielsen The Snapchat scenario and the risk of more closed platforms
Daniel Trielli The rich get richer, the poor scramble
Nushin Rashidian Publishers seek ad dollar alternatives
Jesse Holcomb Information disorder, coming to a congressional district near you
Brian Lam Sketchy ethics around product reviews
Emily Goligoski Looking beyond news for inspiration
Rick Berke Value is the watchword
Rodney Benson Better, less read, and less trusted
Dan Shanoff You down with OTT? (Yeah, DTC)
Corey Ford The empire strikes back
Andrew Losowsky The year of resilience
Michelle Garcia Navigating journalistic transparency
Pia Frey Address users as individuals
Kinsey Wilson Facebook and Google: Help out or pay up
Julia B. Chan Looking for loyalty in all the right places
Felix Salmon Covering bitcoin while owning bitcoin
Matt Thompson Here come the attention managers
Rachel Davis Mersey AI, with real smarts
Feli Sánchez The year for guerrilla user research
Mariano Blejman News games rule
Sam Ford The year of investing in processes
Frédéric Filloux External forces
David Skok Finding an information-life balance
Mandy Velez texting is lit rn, fam
Mariana Moura Santos Think local, act global
Basile Simon We need better career paths for news nerds
Jarrod Dicker Honesty in advertising
Borja Echevarría TV goes digital, digital goes TV
Mira Lowe The year of the local watchdog
Susie Banikarim R.I.P. Pivot to Video (2017–2017)
Trushar Barot The Jio-fication of India
Eric Nuzum Beyond the narrative arc
An Xiao Mina Memes and visuals come to the fore
Richard Tofel The platforms’ power demands more reporters’ attention
Charo Henríquez Training is an investment, not an expense
Tanzina Vega It’s time for media companies to #PassTheMic
Amy Webb Listen to weak signals
Vanessa K. DeLuca Women’s voices take center stage
Jared Newman Venture funding and digital news don’t mix
Carlos Martínez de la Serna The new journalism commons
Jennifer Choi Standing up for us and for each other
Pablo Boczkowski The rise of skeptical reading
Niketa Patel Live journalism comes of age
Craig Newmark Working together toward sustainable solutions
Dheerja Kaur Fun with subscription products
Ruth Palmer Risks will grow for news subjects — especially minorities
Joanne McNeil Gatekeeping the gatekeepers
P. Kim Bui The reckoning is only beginning
Francesco Marconi The year of machine-to-machine journalism
Debra Adams Simmons And a woman shall lead them
Emma Carew Grovum Newsroom culture becomes a priority
Heather Bryant Building the ecosystems for collaboration
Kathleen McElroy Building a news video experience native to mobile
Valérie Bélair-Gagnon Seeking trust in fragmented spaces
Claire Wardle Disinformation gets worse
Mario García Storytelling finally adapts to mobile
Ståle Grut Reclaiming audience interaction from social networks
Caitlin Thompson Podcasting models mature and diversify
Rachel Schallom Better design helps differentiate opinion and news
Jamie Mottram From pageviews to t-shirts
Justin Kosslyn The year journalists become digital security experts
Edward Roussel Eyes, ears, and brains
Michael Kuntz The only pivot that might work
Evie Nagy Pivot to mobile video frustration
Cindy Royal Your journalism curriculum is obsolete
Rodney Gibbs Tech workers turn to journalism
Ray Soto VR reaches the next level
Raney Aronson-Rath Transparency is the antidote to fake news
Bill Keller A growing turn to philanthropy
Raju Narisetti Mirror, mirror on the wall
Will Sommer The year local media gets conservative
Alfred Hermida Going beyond mobile-first
Mi-Ai Parrish Blockchain and trust
José Zamora Revenue-first journalism
Julia Beizer A longer view on the pivot
Marie Gilot No assholes allowed
Jim Moroney Newspapers have to be good enough for readers to pay for
Carrie Brown-Smith Transparency finally takes off
Cristina Wilson The year of the Instagram Story
Helen Havlak Keywords, not publishers, power the world’s biggest feeds
Millie Tran and Stine Bauer Dahlberg (Hint: It’s about your brand)
Monique Judge Letting black women tell their own stories
Juleyka Lantigua Women of color will reclaim and monetize our time