NSF Convergence Accelerator Track F: An Algorithmic Observatory to Address Financial Misinformation and Disinformation in Minoritized Communities (LOI ID: L02616265)

智能手机和其他移动的平台越来越多地被用于获取金融服务。对于依赖预付卡和移动的应用程序发送和接收资金的银行服务不足的人群来说，情况尤其如此。在这个过程中，金融服务平台也正在成为内容平台，而银行和信用合作社继续失去金融技术（Fintech）服务和应用程序以及其他边缘服务的优势。不幸的是，这种转变也助长了有关金融的虚假信息的传播。该项目旨在解决由于虚假信息而对少数群体造成的特殊伤害，即被排除在金融服务之外的伤害，几乎所有关于虚假信息的现有研究都集中在政治传播方面。大多数研究也集中在白色人群，特别是年轻的白色男性作为虚假信息的生产者和老年白色人群作为政治虚假信息的消费者和传播者。新的研究表明，在虚假信息的传播中存在种族不对称。认识到人类是在社会群体和认知社区中学习的社会生物，在不同结构的网络中对虚假信息的传播进行建模，可以深入了解哪些社会结构最能提供对不良信息的弹性。社会学习模型还可以帮助解释群体如何在广泛不同的主题或知识或信仰领域信任其他群体成员。这些模型可以为新的认知社区的设计提供信息。该项目的重点是在美国种族化和边缘化社区中关于货币，银行和金融的虚假信息和错误信息。它试图通过融合科学的方法来解决这种不实和错误的信息。将探讨新形式的合作组织结构以解决这一问题，其出发点是虚假信息是一个社会问题，需要社会作出反应，包括建立新的机构来跟踪和应对虚假信息，并探讨包容性民主参与这一进程的新形式。该项目将与美国信用合作社系统合作，作为合作民主的实验室，并将试点一个社区驱动的论坛，以a）监测错误信息和虚假信息，并制定适当的方法来应对它;以及B）使人们能够应对数字信用评分和金融服务中其他算法流程的快速增长。在这样做的时候，信用社系统的合作模式将被用来作为民主实践的一部分，建立可信和真实的信息共享模型。项目合作伙伴包括关注种族经济平等的社区组织，他们将提供专门知识，并协助开发新的模式，以了解和解决虚假信息。将试行一个数字包容的示范基础设施，这将确保它本身不会成为一种掠夺性包容的形式。将发展可信的信息流，以处理不信任问题。除了信用社网络之外，该项目的合作伙伴还包括PolicyLink，一个促进种族和经济平等的国家研究和行动机构，以及Filene研究所，以提高少数民族家庭的财务能力。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Smartphones and other mobile platforms are increasingly being used to access financial services. This is especially the case for the underbanked population who rely on prepaid cards and mobile applications to send and receive funds. In this process, financial service platforms are also becoming content platforms, while banks and credit unions continue to lose ground to financial technology (fintech) services and apps, and to other fringe services. Unfortunately, this shift is also contributing to the spread of disinformation about finance. This project seeks to address a particular harm to minoritized communities arising as a result of disinformation, viz, the harm of being excluded from financial services.Almost all extant research on disinformation has focused on political communications. Most studies have also focused on the white population—in particular, younger white men as producers of disinformation and the older white population as consumers and spreaders of political disinformation. New research suggests that there are racial asymmetries in the circulation of disinformation. Recognizing that humans are social creatures who learn in social groupings and epistemic communities, modeling the spread of disinformation in networks of varying structures provides insight into which social structures best provide resilience against bad information. Social learning models can also help explain how groups can place trust in other group members on widely divergent topics or domains of knowledge or belief. Such models can inform the design of new epistemic communities. This project focuses on disinformation and misinformation about money, banking, and finance among racialized and marginalized communities in the United States. It seeks to address such dis- and misinformation through a convergence science approach. New forms of cooperative organizational structures will be explored to address the issue, proceeding from the notion that disinformation is a social problem requiring a societal response, including new institutions to track and confront disinformation and new forms of inclusive democratic participation in the process. The project will partner with the U.S. credit union system as a laboratory for cooperative democracy and will pilot a community-driven forum for a) monitoring misinformation and disinformation and developing appropriate approaches to counter it; and b) empowering people to deal with the rapid rise of digital credit scoring and other algorithmic processes in financial services. In doing so, the cooperative model of the credit union system will be harnessed for modeling trustworthy and authentic information sharing as part of democratic practice. Project partners include community organizations focused on racial economic equity who will provide their expertise and assist in the development of new models for understanding and addressing disinformation. A model infrastructure for digital inclusion will be piloted, that will ensure that it does not itself become a form of predatory inclusion. Trusted information flows will be developed that deal with issues of mistrust. In addition to the credit union network, the project partnership also includes PolicyLink, a national research and action institute advancing racial and economic equity, and the Filene Research Institute for enhancing the financial capabilities of minoritized households.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.