Students create platform to fight fake news – 06/19/2023 – Education

Two high school students, in a survey they conducted on fake news, found that it is not at all easy to check whether information is true or false on the internet. So they decided to look for a way to help people do this and thus created Desinfopedia, a platform that brings together fake news checks.

The portal uses an algorithm to automatically search for fake news checked by professionals who work specifically for this, and which are published sparsely, on different portals and social networks, in different formats.

The Fato ou Fake checks, by Agência Lupa and Aos Fatos, media services to combat disinformation, are found by the algorithm and organized in Desinfopedia.

With that, the portal already has more than 1,300 false news tabulated and dated and presents itself as the largest database of fake news in Brazil. The creation of 17-year-old students João Pedro Sandre and Pietro Andrade Quinzani, who study at Porto Seguro College, in São Paulo, took 1st place in the social sciences category at Febrace, the Brazilian Science and Engineering Fair, held at USP ( University of Sao Paulo).

The research began two years ago, when they did a paper on skepticism regarding the Covid-19 vaccine in Brazil. In 2022, this project ranked 2nd in the social sciences category at Febrace and 4th at Isef, the largest international fair for scientific research in basic education, held in the United States.

Next, the two students began to investigate fake news in Brazil. They wanted to understand what the main themes of misinformation were, and so they struggled to find reliable checks. They realized that a grouping of this content would be useful for researchers, in addition to also enabling the lay public to check the information more easily.

“People usually receive fake news on their cell phones, and it is difficult to check on different pages and in individual posts”, says João. “They can click on the Desinfopedia page, which has already done this work. To make it even easier, we are also developing an application that we want to launch soon”, he says.

Expansion plans are many. “We are working for, one day, the platform to be global, with the organization of contents from foreign checking services”, says Pietro. “And we are looking into the possibilities of using artificial intelligence.”

With fake news organized, it is possible to make a thematic analysis of disinformation. They found that the theme changes a lot, always according to the issues that are in evidence. From the pandemic, fake news began to focus on Brazilian politics in last year’s elections, remember the boys.

“We noticed a wide range of themes”, says João. In an analysis carried out by them in the first half of 2022, Brazilian politics was the subject of almost 40% of fake news. Other frequent topics, according to the boys’ survey, were elections (8%), coronavirus (13%), war in Ukraine (10%) and celebrities (12%).

“Everyone can be a victim of fake news”, says João. “They have enormous power and destroy the credibility of very important institutions”, he analyzes. “With our work, we want to help defend the democratic rule of law.”

Pietro completes the reasoning directly: “Fake news overthrows governments, ends up with a vaccine. It is very serious damage”, he says. “And anyone can fall, a street sweeper, a postdoctoral fellow. We all need to learn to fight disinformation.”

At school, research was developed as an interdisciplinary and extracurricular project, which involved learning scientific methodologies. The boys’ advisor was Professor Francisco Tupy, who teaches digital literacy.

Pietro explains the purpose of this discipline, which has been gaining ground in education. “It activates a critical reading of the media in students,” he says. “We have to be trained to always think, ‘Is this true?’ And knowing how to look for the best information “, he completes. “It’s something that should be mandatory in all schools,” he says.

The boys even developed a booklet with tips for recognizing fake news, which point out, for example, that a good part of them have spelling errors.

They are also following the discussion in Congress about the bill that addresses this topic, the already famous Fake News PL. And the two have a certain disagreement over the proposal that the major digital platforms be held responsible for the dissemination of fake news and other harmful content.

“I agree that big techs have to be held accountable, but the question is to what extent”, ponders Pietro. He exemplifies: “To what extent are they responsible for social problems? To what extent can they avoid fake news? To what extent can algorithms exercise efficient control without harming freedom of expression?”

João understands the considerations, but has one conviction: “These companies need to be held accountable”, he says. “Freedom of expression is important, but it also works as a mask to cover up various problems generated by social networks.”