RAPID: Minimizing the spread of false rumors in social media during a disaster

这个项目的重点是了解在应对自然灾害期间虚假信息的传播，以及开发新技术来防止虚假信息在社交媒体上的传播。例如，2011年3月11日日本大地震后，Twitter等社交媒体在信息共享和协调救灾方面发挥了重要作用。然而，一些人也利用社交媒体传播有关辐射和供应的虚假信息，可能造成广泛的恐慌。该项目的目标是更好地了解紧急情况后虚假信息是如何通过Twitter传播的，并开发和评估防止虚假信息传播的新技术。为了实现这些目标，研究人员将建立一个可视化工具来衡量质疑虚假推文准确性的抵消推文的有效性，并对日本和美国的大学生进行实验，测量受试者对不同类型的虚假推文和抵消推文的熟悉程度和传播可能性。知识价值：该项目将对决定虚假信息传播的因素提供新的见解，并提出一套减少虚假信息传播的建议。该项目还将为分析社交媒体中的信息传播提供新的方法。更广泛的影响：该项目提供的见解和工具将有利于未来的灾害应对工作，使应急人员能够发现虚假信息的传播，并在恐慌等负面社会影响发生之前进行干预，以抵消虚假信息的影响。

This project focuses on understanding the spread of false information during responses to natural disasters and on the development of new techniques to prevent the spread of false information in social media. For example, after the March 11, 2011 major earthquake in Japan, social media such as Twitter played an important role in sharing information and coordinating disaster response. However, social media were also used by some people to spread false information about radiation and supplies, potentially creating widespread panic. The goals of this project are to better understand how false information is spread via Twitter after an emergency and to develop and evaluate new techniques to prevent the spread of false information. To achieve these goals, the investigators will build a visualization tool to measure the effectiveness of counteracting tweets that question the accuracy of false tweets and conduct experiments with university students in Japan and USA in which subjects' familiarity with and likelihood of spreading different types of false and counteracting tweets are measured. Intellectual Merit: The project will provide new insights into the factors that determine the spread of false information, as well a set of recommendations for reducing this spread. The project will also contribute new methods for analyzing the spread of information in social media. Broader Impacts: The insights and tools provided by the project will benefit future disaster response efforts by allowing emergency personnel to detect when false information is being spread and intervene to counteract the effects of false information before negative societal effects such as panic occur.