Scientists develop web-based tool to monitor fake news on Facebook, Twitter

Scientists have developed a web-based tool to help monitor the prevalence of fake news on social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter.

Developed by researchers at the University of Michigan in the US, the tool uses a Platform Health Metric called the Iffy Quotient, which draws data from two external entities: NewsWhip and Media Bias/Fact Checker.

NewsWhip is a social media engagement tracking firm, it collects URLs on thousands of websites every day and after that, it gathers information on which of these sites have engagement on Facebook and Twitter platforms. Iffy Quotients queries NewsWhip for the 5,000 top and most popular URLs on these two social media platforms. After that. The tool checks, if the domain names are flagged by Media Bias/ Fact Check, an independent website which arranges various sources based on the reliability and bias.

Iffy Quotient queries NewsWhip for the top 5,000 most popular URLs on the two social media platforms. Then the tool checks to see if those domain names have been flagged by Media Bias/Fact Check, an independent site that classifies various sources based on their reliability and bias.

The first report issued by the researchers confirms what was suspected about the 2016 US presidential election: the Iffy Quotient increased dramatically on both Facebook and Twitter during the election.