XAIvsDisinfo: eXplainable AI Methods for Categorisation and Analysis of COVID-19 Vaccine Disinformation and Online Debates

英国疫苗接种率正在下降，专家认为，社交媒体上广泛传播的疫苗虚假信息可能是原因之一。最近的调查已经确定，疫苗虚假信息正在对公民对COVID-19疫苗接种的信任产生负面影响。作为回应，英国政府同意Twitter、Facebook和YouTube采取措施限制虚假信息的传播。然而，仅仅从平台上删除虚假信息是不够的，因为政府还需要监测和回应对疫苗犹豫不决的公民的担忧。此外，鉴于社交媒体的规模，目前许多记者所做的人工检测和跟踪虚假信息是不可行的。XAIvsDinfo旨在通过对可解释的人工智能模型的新研究来解决这些差距，以大规模分析疫苗虚假信息。具体而言，疫苗虚假信息将自动分类为第一稿定义的六种叙述类型。第二个模型将疫苗声明分为支持疫苗、反对疫苗、疫苗犹豫或其他。我们将研究人类可解释的机器学习方法：XAIvsDisinfo还将创建两个新的多平台数据集，并组织一个新的社区研究挑战，我们的XAI模型和工具将被集成到开源的InVID-WeVerify插件中，供记者和事实核查人员使用。项目成果还将有助于英国政府开展循证政策活动，改善公民对COVID-19疫苗的认知。

UK vaccination rates are in decline and experts believe that vaccine disinformation, widely spreadin social media, may be one of the reasons. Recent surveys have established that vaccinedisinformation is impacting negatively citizen trust in COVID-19 vaccination specifically. As aresponse, the UK Government agreed with Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube measures to limit thespread of disinformation. However, simply removing disinformation from platforms is not enough,as the government also needs to monitor and respond to the concerns of vaccine hesitant citizens.Moreover, manual detection and tracking of disinformation, as currently practiced by manyjournalists, is infeasible, given the scale of social media.XAIvsDinfo aims to address these gaps through novel research on explainable AI-based models forlarge-scale analysis of vaccine disinformation. Specifically, vaccine disinformation will be classifiedautomatically into the six narrative types defined by First Draft. A second model will categorisevaccine statements as pro-vaccine, anti-vaccine, vaccine-hesitant, or other.We will investigate explainable machine learning approaches that are human interpretable: bothin detecting errors and weaknesses of the models and in providing human-readable explanationsof the models' decisions.XAIvsDisinfo will also create two new multi-platform datasets and organise a new communityresearch challenge on cross-platform analysis of vaccine disinformation, as follow-up from ourRumourEval one.Our XAI models and tools will be integrated into the open-source InVID-WeVerify plugin, for takeup by journalists and fact-checkers. The project outputs will also contribute to evidence-basedpolicy activities by the UK government on improving citizen perception of COVID-19 vaccines.