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

Stevens Institute Of Technology, Hoboken NJ

Investigators

Abstract

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.