Monthly Archives: March 2021

HOUSTON, TX With the start of the new league calendar year, teams can start to negotiate and sign various free agents. The aim of these actions is to either rebuild the deficient shortcomings of a squad from a previous season and/or reload on areas of strength, building up critical depth for the coming season. For the Houston Texans, leadership is looking do both.

Since Sunday, this team has been a house afire!!! noted one team official. Caserio has been going crazy, a freakin berserker signing players left and right! We cant keep the toner in the printer/fax machines refilled fast enough, getting contracts out and receiving signed deals into our office. We no sooner announce one signing, where we can pose their bio and the obligatory photo-shopped Texans jersey before we get word that Caserio just signed another guy. Five of our folks are pleading exhaustion. It got so bad that one of the PA staff actually replayed Building the Texans to feel good about himselfNOT THAT THERES ANYTHING WRONG WITH THAT!!!! The team official in question suddenly started to look left and right in a frantic manner, as if expecting something.

It would be one thing if we were signing players that people had heard of. You know, like the big ticket free agents. However, we are mostly signing guys that none of us have ever heard of outside of the signed contract paperwork. In fact, after we signed Chris Moore, we got a note from his parents, surprised that they had a son that was playing for the Texans. Yet, the biggest shock wasnt that he was in the NFL or playing for the Texansthey actually didnt remember having a son with that name. It has just been insane.

To say that the Texans have been busy in free agency is an understatement. Since Sunday, the team has traded Benardrick McKinney for Shaq Lawson, traded for Patriots Offensive Lineman Marcus Cannon for a series of pick swaps and signed 10 free agents, and this doesnt include the clubhouse leader for Week 1 Start [CENSORED BY ORDER OF THE EASTERBY]...er, back-up quarterback to Watson, Tyrod Taylor. Surprisingly, all of these moves still left the Texans with about $2M in cap space, but more space will be made in the days ahead.

Some on the staff had some unique takes on the strategy. Word was going around the office that we implemented Operation Bargain Bin. Initially, after Caserio went all angry-Velociraptor these past two weeks, Cal was really, really excited about free agency, talking up how we were going to buy the best and the brightest. However, Caserio had to point out that we only had so much cap space and a lot of personnel needs, so the team couldnt run through all the money now. Cal threw a fit, but Caserio and Easterby managed to talk him down. That, and Janice had to tell Cal that he could spend money, but it was like shopping in the bargain bin at GameStop. That and they had to promise that if he was a good boy, he could spend a lot of money in 2022.

Besides, it wasnt there was a ton of competition for most of these guys. I mean, I love seeing the team make these moves, but most of these guys werent getting a lot of swipes right on NFL Tinder, if you get my drift.

Hey, I aint gonna complain. The 1-year deal beats what I could have pulled down working at Taco Cabana observed Tremon Smith, who, we think, may or may not have played for the Colts. We really dont have any idea at this point.

There were also a few eyebrows raised when Caserio was working deals with Miami and New England. Well, New England, isnt it obvious? He was calling home. I am sure that Belichick was willing to work with Caserio, especially since he didnt care about that one OL guy anyway observed another team staffer. However, Miami was a more unique case. Much of the current Miami staff has ties to New England. When Caserio first called, I think they were leery, but then he uttered Do your job and suddenly, things just started happening magically.

However, there were questions as to the long term strategy of the Texans. Some might be heartened by the activity, especially given the roster holes and the lack of quality draft picks. Others might wonder just what the [Easterby] this team is doing. For the ground truth, we turned to the heart of the Texans, and he gave an expectedly positive answer.

Oh ye of little faith! Doth not you see the glory and vision that is of the Easterby? noted Jack Easterby. Following the doctrine of Smart, Tough and Dependable, we are creating a new divine order. It is said that you are only as strong as your weakest link. Well, we are building up a stronger weakest link. Our backups will be the best in the league, as they will beat up all other back-ups. Im already calling the Texans to win the pre-season, with our solidified depth signings. VICITORY, VICTORY, VICTORY, VICTORY, VICT [Editors note: This goes on for about 30 lines]blessed be the Easterby, for while he be poked with the arrows of spite, he will truly lead the faithful to the promised land, the divine and blessed paradise that is the Houston Texans.

Now, if you will excuse me, I have to go post my latest motivational quote to my adoring social media followers, who thirst for the divine word of their prophet, The Easterby.

While he does that, we at Totally Not Fake News will continue to make sense of the whirlwind moves of the Houston Texans, as they attempt to move on from the combined dumpster fire/$hitshow/cluster[Easterby] that was the 2020 season and the mismanaged situation with disgruntled franchise quarterback Des[CENSORED BY ORDER OF THE EASTERBY]really, this bug again? Ok, the situation with current starting quarterback Deshaun Watson. Happy now, you [Easterby] bas[CENSORED BY ORDER OF THE EASTERBY]?

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TOTALLY NOT FAKE NEWS: Rebuilding, Reloading and the Road to Victory - Battle Red Blog

DENVER (CBS4) A bill to help kids in school discern fake news from credible media sparked heated debate at the state Capitol. The bill directs teachers to incorporate media literacy in their curriculum and provides an online bank of resources from the Department of Education to help them.

At issue is whether the resources, compiled by an outside task force, teach kids how to tell fact from fiction or teach them what is fact and what is fiction.

Lawmakers spent nearly three hours debating the bill on the House floor Friday.

The bill sponsor, Rep. Lisa Cutter, says she was surprised by the pushback, We just want kids to understand how to dig a little deeper. You know, when you see that headline and you go, Oh my gosh! and you react so strongly, we want children, in particular, to say, Oh, hey, wait, maybe thats biased, I better look at this a little further.

She says the bank, or library, teaches kids how to think critically.

Rep. Patrick Neville says it tells them what to think. He questioned why there werent any Republicans on the task force and why it didnt take any public input.

This library is more than just teaching general logic and reasoning to students. I would almost say that Socrates would be turning in his grave right now because it is more than that. Its really leading into what they believe the truth is and leading students to that specific truth to what they have already concluded is the truth.

Neville points to an article in the bank of resources written by Black Lives Matter and another article about climate change that refers to Wikipedia as a source, I dont think any academic person would say that Wikipedia is a reliable source for anything.

Cutter insists the articles are irrelevant. The purpose of the bank, she says, is to give kids the tools they need to evaluate those articles.

The resource bank just has a variety of examples of information and nobody is prescribing that they use them or theyre the truth, thats absolutely against the point of what were doing, said Cutter.

The bill doesnt require teachers to use the bank of resources. It got initial approval in the House.

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Colorado Republicans Outraged Over Bill Involving Kids And Fake News - CBS Denver

Many people who share fake news online do so because they arent paying close attention to what theyre sharing, according to a new study. The research found that simply prompting people to think about the accuracy of their news content helps curtail the spread offalsehoods.

When deciding what to share on social media, people are often distracted from considering the accuracy of the content, the authors, from the Hill/Levene Schools of Business at the University of Regina and the Sloan School of Management at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), wrote in the new paper published in Nature.

While the spread of inaccurate or false information and conspiracy theories is nothing new the climate denying disinformation campaign by the fossil fuel industry dates back decades the studys findings undercut the notion that there is a widespread desire among the public to actively spread disinformation. Rather, it adds further evidence showing how social media allows for fake news to spread rapidly and how to slow itdown.

Online disinformation seemed to hit a fever pitch in the past year, with the spread of the violent QAnon conspiracy, Covid denial, 2020 election conspiracies, and pro-insurrection voices all intermingling and cross-pollinating.

But instead of the malign actors involved in creating disinformation such as the Koch-backed network of think tanks, charities and politicians seeking to undermine climate science, or, more recently, coordinated social media campaigns and troll farms, sometimes backed by government intelligence agencies, aimed at undermining elections around the world the new Nature study looks at the much larger set of everyday social media users who share this type of misinformation online, often unwittingly, or at least not with malicious intent. The results offer some reasons for hope, as well as some tools to fightdisinformation.

The study surveyed thousands of U.S. Twitter and Facebook users. It found that most people do not wish to spread fake news and, in fact, they rate accuracy as an important principle. When asked about what motivates sharing, participants rated accuracy higher than other factors, such as whether a piece of news was interesting, funny, or politically-aligned with their beliefs. Moreover, most people are fairly good at identifying and distinguishing accurate news from false news. In addition, most people do not share inaccurate news for hyperpartisan reasonseither.

Instead, what the researchers found was that many people spread fake news without thinking too much about whether the information is accurate or not. Its a problem of inattention, made worse by social media which pushes people to sift through news rapidly andsuperficially.

This means that when thinking about the rise of misinformation online, the issue is not so much a shift in peoples attitudes about truth, but rather a more subtle shift in attention to truth, two of the studys authors, David Rand of MIT and Gordon Pennycook of the University of Regina, wrote in Scientific American, summarizing their findings (emphasis inoriginal).

The researchers conducted several experiments to parse out contributing factors. In one experiment, participants were given a mix of true and false news stories, and one group of participants was asked to decide whether the headlines were accurate and another group was asked whether they would share them on socialmedia.

Interestingly, the participants looking for accuracy did a reasonably good job identifying accurate stories from fake ones. In one experiment, participants rated true stories as accurate more often than false stories by a margin of 55 percentagepoints.

But the group weighing whether or not to share a story chose to share fake stories at a much higher rate compared to when they were only asked to weigh accuracy. When looking only at false headlines, 50 percent more were shared than were rated asaccurate.

In other words, when asked about accuracy, people were good at spotting accurate versus fake stories. But when asked about sharing, people chose to share more stories, even fake ones. And they chose to share stories that fit their political views at a much higher rate (by 19 percentage points) than stories that went against their politicalbeliefs.

That would seem to suggest an ideological or partisan motivation. But the authors conducted another experiment, with over 5,000 participants on Twitter who had previously shared news from Breitbart and Infowars, two sites professional fact-checkers have rated as highly untrustworthy. The authors sent a private Twitter message to the participants and asked them to judge whether or not a single non-political headline wasaccurate.

The researchers then monitored the participants subsequent sharing behavior and found a significant improvement in sharing choices; in the 24 hours after the prompt, participants shared relatively more news from reliable outlets such as CNN and relatively less from sources of inaccurate information likeInfowars.

The authors surmise that simply redirecting attention towards the concept of accuracy helped cut down on sharing of false information. [W]e find that the single accuracy message made users more discerning in their subsequent sharing decisions, they wrote in their study. Relative to baseline, the accuracy message increased the average quality of the news sourcesshared.

The researchers replicated these experiments with Covid-19 information and found a similardynamic.

The study shows that there is a disconnect between what people share and what they consider to be accurate, suggesting that people share content in which they themselves might not necessarilybelieve.

Individuals scroll quickly through a social media news feed, which tends to be mixed with accurate and inaccurate information, along with emotionally engaging content. And crucially, the authors wrote, they are provided with instantaneous and quantified social feedback on sharing. The quest for retweets and likes, in other words, may discourage people from reflecting onaccuracy.

Rather than a wholesale rejection of truth, people lazily pass on inaccurate information because that tends to be what is rewarded on socialmedia.

The good news was that even small interventions the prompt asking whether or not headlines were accurate redirected people away from a tendency to share false information. This suggests that social media platforms could, perhaps, periodically survey people on the accuracy of selected headlines in an effort to subtlety remind users about accurate information, the authorssay.

Twitter has recently been taking steps to slow the spread of misinformation. Last year, the social media platform introduced a new feature that reminds people to read an article before retweeting it, which it says has promising results. The platform also began tagging misleading tweets withdisclaimers.

The new study's authors concede that the research is limited to sharing of political news among people in the United States. They note that follow up research could examine the impact of subtle accuracy nudges when coordinated disinformation campaigns are in question, such as the climate denial or election fraud, which are backed by groups actively working to promote afalsehood.

In a recent analysis, DeSmog found that dozens of prominent climate deniers supported the January 6 insurrection in Washington D.C. They spread debunked claims about election fraud and in some cases supported political violence. This is the type of campaign that was then likely shared by many more people who, as the Nature study illustrates, may have shared the content without taking time to think about itsaccuracy.

Experts have identified tools and methods for protection against malicious disinformation campaigns, such as prebunking, which involves learning about the tactics and tricks of bad actors before you are exposed to them. However, such campaigns of weaponized disinformation are potentially more challenging to combat when compared to one-off fake newsstories.

Main image: Social media apps. Credit: Jason Howie (CC BY 2.0)

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Nudging Social Media Users to Think Critically Helps Slow the Spread of Fake News, Study Finds - DeSmog

Greg Gutfeld slammed the mainstream media in the wake of a massive correction by The Washington Post, which read in part that, contrary to the paper's original reporting, former President Donald Trump did not tell Georgia stateelections investigator Frances Watson to "find the fraud."

The quote, attributed to a leaked phone call between the two officials, came as Trump routinely railed against Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp and Secretary of State Brad Raffensberger's handling of the election. The president's back and forth with his fellow Republicans in Georgia provided the media with much fodder.

On "The Five," Gutfeld said that while "deep fake" images have been a trend on the internet for some time, the mainstream media has engaged in "deep fakes" of journalism for a while as well.

"It sounds new but the media hasbeen out of it for years; onlywith words, tricking the publicto say something they didnt," he said.

"Take 'The Washington Post'whofinally issued a brutalcorrection of a huge damaging lie.They contorted Donald TrumpsDecember phone call with the Georgiasecretary of states topinvestigator claiming Trumpordered her to find the fraudand if she did she would be ahero."

"That lie came from a singleanonymous source and withendlessly repeated by the media."

The host went on to further criticize the media, playing a montageof national newscasters reporting on the now-retracted quote:

"What lemmings. They're like Smolletts who can type," he said. "They claimed theyconfirmed it but askyourself, how could all of thembe wrong about the same exactthing?There is only one way:onesource."

Gutfeld credited the Washington Examiner for its take on the retraction, remarking that multiple newsrooms must've confirmed the scoop by speaking with the same anonymous source.

"It is like tracing cases of foodpoisoning to a single batch ofrancid potato salad.Just as easy to track and moredisgusting," he said.

"We knew this was behind most anti trump drech --oneanonymous source gave it to Paper A, then Network B calls thesame source to get confirmation.Then Snopes and thefact-checkersagree."

Gutfeld characterized the situation as an example of "investigative incest," and predicted it was the same process that led to the dissemination of the Steele dossier.

"So how can we ever trust theseclowns again?They would do everything todestroy a person -- from apresident they cant stand to hisobviously evil supporters.They'd push a lie to help theirside win an election," he continued.

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"Its like Biden claiming thevaccine started with him or that there's noemergency at the border, but thepress dont just nod along butthey take the lies and turn itinto truth.Its not fake news, deep fakenews. Be ready when they useit on you."

Gutfeld went on to note that the Post's media critic, Erik Wemple, criticized his own paper for the retraction as well.

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Greg Gutfeld blasts WaPo's 'deep-fake news' after massive retraction in Trump-Georgia reporting - Fox News

Weve all seen it: social media is full of garbage. While wed like to think otherwise, a big chunk of this garbage is shared by users much like ourselves. Thankfully, there are ways to address this. Prompting people to reflect on the accuracy of news headlines can greatly reduce the amount of fake news in our feeds, a new study shows.

In recent years, weve seen a lot of misinformation flowing around the internet. Its not like this is a new phenomenon, but new channels (such as social media) have given people a loudspeaker, and many are using it to spread misinformation whether theyre aware or not.

This is more than just a nuisance. This type of misinformation, as weve recently seen, spreads to all layers of society, including its higher political echelons.

The design of social media platforms doesnt help either. Its all fast, as fast as possible. You scroll through stories and photos, you like and reshare stories in an instant. Accuracy, of course, fades in the background. Most people who see something they like (or hate) share it without a second thought and this is where the problems start.

We begin with the confusion-based account, in which people share misinformation because they mistakenly believe that it is accurate (for example, owing to media or digital illiteracy or politically motivated reasoning), the authors of a new study write.

The study was led by Gordon Pennycook, assistant professor in Behavioural Science at the University of Regina in Canada. Pennycook and colleagues carried out four survey experiments and a Twitter experiment. In the initial experiments, they presented participants with real news stories (half of which were untrue), asking them to judge the accuracy of these titles and whether theyd consider sharing them.

People rated true headlines as accurate more often than the false ones, and most participants stated that it was extremely important to share only accurate information on social media so presumably, they dont intentionally share misleading information. But theres a catch: people were also twice as likely to consider false stories that fit with their political beliefs.

At first glance, this seems to suggest that people value partisanship over accuracy. But while misinformation can exacerbate partisan behavior, researchers note that their results challenge the popular claim that people value partisanship over accuracy because when researchers prompted study volunteers to consider the accuracy of what theyre sharing, they shared fewer false stories.

In other words, people just arent paying attention, which is normal internet behavior. If they were prompted to pay more attention, they would avoid spreading falsehoods more often.

Our data indicate that social media companies could prompt people to think about accuracy in various ways. For example, by literally asking people questions about accuracy help inform what we show people do you think this headline is accurate. Or perhaps just open-ended questions like do you think its important to only share accurate content (most people do). Its possible that information campaigns, such as the one here, may be effective as well, Pennycook tells ZME Science.

This is good news it offers a simple way to cut down on online misinformation. Researchers emphasize that social media platforms could easily implement to counter misinformation online.

The results are perhaps even more relevant because the study participants are savvier than the average user. Researchers gathered participants from the Amazon Mechanical Turk (MTurk) a crowdsourcing marketplace whose users likely spend more time on social media than the average person.

On MTurk, weve done similar studies with various samples (although, all are from polling firms of one form or another) and our results are very consistent. In any case, what were interested in here is, in essence, internet behavior. And, so, our samples are people who spend more time on the internet than the average person but that fits with the phenomenon that were interested in, Pennycook adds.

This is a good reminder for when youre surfing social media: take a moment to consider whether what youre sharing is accurate. But expecting people to do this on a large scale is probably unrealistic its companies that need to take action.

Twitter is already trialing some options. When users are sharing an article without actually opening the link, they can see a warning like the one above and given that most people dont even read the articles they share, this is a useful first step. But much more is needed.

Researchers conclude that periodic reminders to users to rate the accuracy of information could reduce the spread of misinformation online, along with all the problems it causes.

Together, these studies suggest that when deciding what to share on social media, people are often distracted from considering the accuracy of the content. Therefore, shifting attention to the concept of accuracy can cause people to improve the quality of the news that they share, the study sums up.

The study was published in Nature.

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Want people to stop sharing fake news? Just make them reflect on what theyre sharing - ZME Science

Its bad enough when the major networks and the daily dead fishwrappers push false stories to fuel a political agenda.

Now, we have elected officials doing it too

Case in point, a letter of condemnation from the entire Portland city council last night about murders in Atlanta.

The letter says We condemn acts of hate and bias-fueled incidents, pointing out that six of the eight people murdered were Asian Americans. It ignores the other two white skinned victims.

Problem is, theres no evidence at this point that the murders were racially motivated.

In fact, accused killer Robert Long told the police that his addiction to sex drove him to commit the murders at three Atlanta massage parlors.

It seems politically advantageous for Mayor Ted Wheeler and the council to condemn phantom racial bias for the murdersbecause it drives the narrative that America is under threat from mythical white supremacists.

Much less convenient for Feckless Ted to condemn sex addictionsince its only been a short time since he infamously declared that he welcomed campaign donations from sex industry workersincluding strippers. And, Im not kidding.

It also gives Feckless Ted another opportunity to blame Donald Trump for something months after he left officewhile Joe Biden, the candidate he favored, helps out the cartels who are trafficking adults AND children, across our southern border to populate the sex trade.

The post NW Government Takes Their Turn Spreading Fake News appeared first on The Lars Larson Show.

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NW Government Takes Their Turn Spreading Fake News - 550 KTSA

New research published in Social Psychological and Personality Science suggests that intellectual humility is a trait that may protect against misinformation in the media or fake news. A series of studies found that people with greater intellectual humility were consistently more inclined to investigate fake claims about COVID-19.

There has been great concern over the massive amount of misinformation that has circulated since the start of the coronavirus pandemic. This false information includes conspiracy theories regarding the origin of the virus and misleading claims that downplay the seriousness of the pandemic. The media, scholars, and world leaders alike have discussed the dangers of this misinformation, suggesting that such false claims can reduce adherence to protective behaviors and further the spread of the virus.

A research team led by Jonah Koetke proposed that when faced with questionable information, there are certain actions that people can take to evaluate whether the information is reliable or not, such as fact-checking a news article or seeking alternative sources of information. They call these actions investigative behaviors and propose that the tendency to engage in these behaviors depends on a persons characteristics and specifically, their intellectual humility.

We were interested in this topic for two reasons. First, we were interested because misinformation about COVID-19 is such a pressing and dangerous issue. We thought it critical to research ways to mitigate the harmful effects of this misinformation. Second, from a theory perspective, we were interested in finding what predicts engaging in the sorts of behaviors that can protect people from misinformation, said Koetke, a graduate student at the University of Pittsburgh.

Intellectual humility refers to the ability to recognize ones own intellectual shortcomings and to accept the possibility of being wrong. People with strong intellectual humility tend to be more motivated to seek knowledge and better able to distinguish the difference between a strong and a weak argument. Among three separate American samples, Koetke and colleagues explored whether individuals with greater intellectual humility would be more willing to scrutinize COVID-19 misinformation.

An initial study presented participants with two real news headlines related to COVID-19 and two fake news headlines related to COVID-19. Participants were asked how likely they would be to fact-check the headline, look into the article source, seek alternative opinions, or read the full article. The researchers found that people with greater intellectual humility were more likely to engage in these investigative behaviors in response to the fake news headlines but not more likely to investigate the real news headlines. Koetke and colleagues say that this suggests that intellectual humility is only relevant when it comes to investigating questionable information that seems misaligned with reputable knowledge.

Two additional studies replicated these effects. Importantly, the third study looked at real behavior rather than self-reported intentions. Respondents were shown two fake news headlines downplaying the importance of wearing a mask to prevent the spread of the virus. For each headline, they were offered the opportunity to open a new tab and search for more information about the article. In line with the previous studies, respondents with greater humility were significantly more likely to investigate the fake news articles by opting to search for more information online.

Importantly, in all three studies, the researchers controlled for a series of variables that may affect a persons interpretation of fake news such as analytic thinking, education, and familiarity with the article and the effects of intellectual humility remained significant.

The take-away from our paper is that it is important to be humble in our own knowledge when encountering misinformation. In our studies, we found that those with higher levels of intellectual humility, or those willing to admit that what they think and believe may be fallible, were more motivated to engage in investigating misinformation and seeking out evidence and facts, Koetke told PsyPost.

The researchers say that their findings suggest that while people who are high in intellectual humility are open to new perspectives, they will not unselectively endorse any view that they come across. Rather, the study authors note, they want their beliefs to be based on solid evidence and therefore behave accordingly, investigating the validity of information so they can ultimately reject false claims. These findings thus suggest that intellectual humility may provide some of the motivation behind engaging in behaviors that fight against misinformation.

One limitation to the current research was that the studies did not assess whether the use of investigative behaviors was actually helpful in evaluating misinformation, and the authors suggest that future studies should explore this. They acknowledge that its possible that looking into false claims could backfire by leading people to feel overly convinced about a claim after taking investigative actions to examine its source.

The major caveat for our paper is that the findings were correlational. Future work should focus on manipulating intellectual humility to determine causation, Koetke said.

The study, Intellectual Humility Predicts Scrutiny of COVID-19 Misinformation, was authored by Jonah Koetke, Karina Schumann, and Tenelle Porter.

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People with greater intellectual humility show greater scrutiny toward fake news about the coronavirus - PsyPost

The 21st century has set the premise for todays disruptive digital economy, where creating and broadcasting digital content has become commonplace thanks to mobile devices and social platforms, created and published at a large scale. But the accessibility to create and share information online has surfaced a new problem of fake news and misinformation, making it difficult to filter what is real news.

With ongoing advances in technologies like artificial intelligence (AI), digital animations, and social engineering, the line between fake and authentic content is only going to blur even more. It will take the disruptive capabilities of another technology, using a solution that produces immutable, irrefutable, and wholly transparent results, and that is blockchain technology.

In fact, as blockchain gains credibility, it is being piloted for uses never before considered. Groups, as varied as newsrooms, nonprofits, major corporations, and start-ups, are all eagerly pursuing the technology to create distributed, transparent networks for reliable media and digital information.

The main issue about fake news is the rapid speed with which it disseminates. While false information has always existed, the internet makes it worse every year. The high speed of fake news sharing has the potential to directly affect public relations and have serious political and economic consequences that are sometimes difficult to predict.

For decades, manual fact-checking was the way to go, before technologies for fighting fake news, like automated source finding, or an anti-plagiarism system came about. Then came projects and studies on using various machine learning and natural language processing techniques to identify inaccurate information. These projects are most often based on stylistic analysis of text, using a model that has been trained on fake-news text examples. Nonetheless, there are also limitations here, such as the collection and markup of the database, as it is a very time-consuming process.

However, there are examples of successful projects, such as when Twitter acquired a British artificial intelligence-based startup to help it combat the amount of fake news being spread on its platform. While blockchain, a relatively new technology, wont necessarily stop people from posting false information, it could, at minimum, foster a new sense of trust in what they see online by making it easier to track and verify. Such efforts could also encourage the public to exercise a healthier skepticism of online media overall.

Blockchain, otherwise known as a distributed ledger system, involves not only the secure storage of data and the use of cryptographic encryption, but it will also be impossible to make arbitrary changes. Smart contracts store text, images/videos, and their sources on a blockchain. Anything that goes into the registry will have source data, namely who posted a particular news item whether it be an article, photo, or video and who the source is of a particular quote. This is relevant, for example, for news agencies or government press releases whose information may be distorted when disseminated by other media.

Though its at a very nascent stage, according to a recent report from Gartner, Predicts 2020: Blockchain Technology, by 2023, up to 30% of world news and video content will be authenticated as real by blockchain ledgers, countering Deep Fake technology. Gartner also stated that The New York Times is one of the first major news publications to test blockchain in authenticating news photographs and video content.

The newspapers Research and Development team and IBM have partnered on the News Provenance Project, which uses Hyperledger Fabrics permissioned blockchain to store contextual metadata. That metadata includes when and where a photo or video was shot, who took it, and how and when it was edited and published.

That said, with the help of blockchain platforms, news sites can increase their transparency, and getting to the source of misinformation will become much easier and faster. Not only will this help another end-user verify the information, but it will also provide evidence of the metadata collected at each stage.

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Here's how blockchain will combat the plague of fake news - TechHQ