Collaborative Research: SaTC: CORE: Large: Rapid-Response Frameworks for Mitigating Online Disinformation

虚假信息是社会面临的一个关键而紧迫的挑战。它削弱了我们应对包括恐怖主义行为和流行病在内的危机事件的能力。它使我们作为个人、团体和社会，容易受到外国政府、金融机会主义者和其他一系列不良行为者的操纵。这个问题因社交媒体平台的设计和广泛使用而加剧，本质上是一个信任问题--虚假信息破坏了人们对信息、科学、民主机构、新闻业以及彼此之间的信任。这项研究促进了我们对在线虚假信息的理解，并应用创新的方法和协作基础设施来应对这一挑战，其复杂程度和速度与挑战的动态和跨学科性质不相上下。通过开发和实施快速反应框架，研究团队迅速识别虚假信息运动，并将这些发现独特地传达给政府、行业、媒体和更广泛的公众，帮助建立社会对此类操纵的韧性。这项研究包括三个组成部分：1)开发考虑到问题的社会技术性质的虚假信息如何播种、培育和传播的模型和理论；2)开发和应用创新的快速分析框架，以快速响应虚假信息；以及3)实施和评估多利益相关者合作的影响，以在现实世界事件中实时处理虚假信息。这项工作采用了一种混合方法，将新颖的可视化和网络分析相结合，以确定模式和异常，并通过定性分析揭示这些特征的含义。在快速反应方法的基础上，调查人员还利用访谈和试验，制定和评估与不同利益攸关方沟通这些调查结果的战略。在概念上，这项研究利用社会学和社会心理学中的谣言理论和越来越多的与网络操纵相关的文献来阐明虚假信息运动的参与性动态。在对科学基础设施的影响方面，这一努力建立了协作框架，其他人可以用来创建自己的快速响应系统。这一奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Disinformation is a critical, pressing challenge for society. It diminishes our ability to respond to crisis events, including acts of terrorism and pandemics. It makes us vulnerable, as individuals, groups, and a society, to manipulation from foreign governments, financial opportunists, and a range of other bad actors. This problem, exacerbated by the design and widespread use of social media platforms, is inherently a problem of trust — disinformation undermines trust in information, science, democratic institutions, journalism, and in each other. This research advances our understanding of online disinformation and applies innovative approaches and collaboration infrastructure to address this challenge at a sophistication and pace on par with the dynamic and interdisciplinary nature of the challenge. Through the development, implementation of rapid response frameworks, the research team rapidly identifies disinformation campaigns and communicates those findings uniquely to diverse stakeholders in government, industry, media, and the broader public — helping to build societal resilience to this kind of manipulation.This research has three integrated components: 1) developing models and theories of how disinformation is seeded, cultivated, and spread that take into account the sociotechnical nature of the problem; 2) developing and applying innovative, rapid-analysis frameworks for responding to disinformation quickly; and 3) implementing and evaluating the impact of multi-stakeholder collaborations to address disinformation in real-time during real-world events. The work applies a mixed-method approach that integrates novel visualizations and network analysis to identify patterns and anomalies with qualitative analysis that reveals the meanings of those features. Extending from a rapid response approach, investigators are also developing and evaluating, using interviews and experiments, strategies for communicating these findings with diverse stakeholders. Conceptually, this research leverages theories of rumoring from sociology and social psychology and the growing body of literature related to online manipulation to shed light on the participatory dynamics of disinformation campaigns. In terms of impacts on scientific infrastructure, this effort builds collaboration frameworks that others can use to create their own systems for rapid response.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.