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C H A P T E R 1
Introduction
1.1 MOTIVATION
Social media has become an important means of large-scale information sharing and communi-
cation in all occupations, including marketing, journalism, public relations, and more [179]. is
change in consumption behaviors is due to some novel features such as mobility, free, and inter-
activeness. However, the low cost, easy access, and rapid dissemination of information of social
media draw a large audience and enable the wide propagation of fake news, i.e., news with inten-
tionally false information. For instance, in 2016, millions of people read and “liked” fake news
stories proclaiming that Pope Francis has endorsed Donald Trump for U.S. president.
1
When
the Pakistani defense minister mistakenly believed a fake news story, he threatened a nuclear
war with Israel.
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ese examples clearly demonstrate that fake news stories are problematic not
only for the credibility of online journalism, but also due to their detrimental real-world conse-
quences, resulting in violence or influencing election results. erefore, it becomes increasingly
important for policy makers to regulate and discourage the creation of fake news, for online
business to detect and prevent fake news, and for citizens to protect themselves from fake news.
Fake news on social media presents unique challenges. First, fake news is intentionally
written to mislead readers, which makes it nontrivial to detect simply based on content. Second,
social media data is large-scale, multi-modal, mostly user-generated, sometimes anonymous and
noisy. ird, the consumers of social media come from different backgrounds, have disparate
preferences or needs, and use social media for varied purposes. Finally, the low cost of creating
social media accounts makes it easy to create malicious accounts, such as social bots, cyborg
users, and trolls, all of which can become powerful sources of proliferation of fake news.
Despite the importance of the problem, our understanding of fake news is still limited. For
example, we want to know why people create fake news, who produces and publishes it, how
fake news spreads, what characteristics distinguish fake news from legitimate news, or why some
people are more susceptible to fake news than others [89]. erefore, we propose to understand
fake news with disciplines such as journalism, psychology, and social science, and characterize
the unique characteristics for its detection. Establishing a better understanding of fake news will
allow us to come up with algorithmic solutions for detecting fake news and managing it before
fake news is widely disseminated.
1
https://www.cnbc.com/2016/12/30/read-all-about-it-the-biggest-fake-news-stories-of-
2016.html
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https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/24/world/asia/pakistan-israel-khawaja-asif-fake-news-
nuclear.html
