Debunking false news takes time when it is done by humans. The longer it takes to debunk false information, the more time it has to spread. Attempts are being made to automate the process of reliably identifying false news. While some ideas have been put in place in the real world, most appear to be in the research phase.

Fighting mis- and disinformation with technology

There are a number of experiments that focus on Natural Language Processing. In this category of experiment, an algorithm uses language analysis to identify false statements. ‘… humans generally use spoken or written language in a different way when they are trying to deceive others and we can use these characteristics to train an artificial intelligence algorithm to identify possible fake news’ (Azevedo, 2020). Several aspects of language, including subjectivity, emotiveness, affect, moral bias and formality can be scored by the algorithm. The cumulative score would indicate a higher or lower possibility that the information could be false (Azevedo, 2020).

Another study (Ahmad et al., 2020) combines several algorithms that explore different textual properties. The combination of the results provided by the algorithms are compiled by what the researchers call an ‘ensemble method’. One problem with natural language processing is that different disciplines use language differently. An algorithm trained to detect false political news does not perform well when attempting to detect false scientific news. The multiple algorithms in the ensemble method make detection of false news across multiple disciplines and categories more successful.

Some approaches use a combination of machine and humans to identify false information. For example, Logically (www.logically.ai) combines machine learning, artificial intelligence and a large human fact checking team to identify and flag false information.

So far, there is unfortunately no one tool that can automatically identify false news. While emerging automated fact checking and truth verifying tools can help, they do not represent a cure-all for the epidemic of false information in today's media.

Fighting mis-and disinformation with corrections

Reasonable people prefer to share accurate information. However, when sharing online, people often do not check the accuracy of the information they are sharing. Correcting misinformation in the online arena can amount to a public rebuke. This can have a deeply emotional and often negative reaction.