Recent research suggests that not all fact-checking efforts are equal: when and what is fact-checked plays a pivotal role in effectively correcting misconceptions. In that context, signals capturing how much attention specific topics receive on the Internet have the potential to study (and possibly support) fact-checking efforts. This paper proposes a framework to study fact-checking with online attention signals. The framework consists of: 1) extracting claims from fact-checking efforts; 2) linking such claims with knowledge graph entities; and 3) estimating the online attention these entities receive. We use this framework to conduct a preliminary study of a dataset of 879 COVID-19-related fact-checks done in 2020 by 81 international organizations. Our findings suggest that there is often a disconnect between online attention and fact-checking efforts. For example, in around 40% of countries that fact-checked ten or more claims, half or more than half of the ten most popular claims were not fact-checked. Our analysis also shows that claims are first fact-checked after receiving, on average, 35% of the total online attention they would eventually receive in 2020. Yet, there is a considerable variation among claims: some were fact-checked before receiving a surge of misinformation-induced online attention; others are fact-checked much later. Overall, our work suggests that the incorporation of online attention signals may help organizations assess their fact-checking efforts and choose what and when to fact-check claims or stories. Also, in the context of international collaboration, where claims are fact-checked multiple times across different countries, online attention could help organizations keep track of which claims are "migrating" between countries.
翻译:最近的研究显示,并非所有的核实事实努力都是平等的:在有效纠正错误观念方面,何时和何者接受事实检查,在有效纠正错误观念方面发挥着关键作用。在这方面,有迹象显示互联网上对具体专题的多重关注程度有可能研究(并可能支持)事实检查努力。本文件建议了一个框架,研究与在线关注信号进行事实检查的情况。框架包括:1)从实况调查工作中提取索赔要求;2)将这类索赔要求与知识图表实体联系起来;3)估计这些实体在网上受到的关注。我们利用这个框架对81个国际组织在2020年完成的879 COVID-19相关事实检查数据集进行初步研究。我们的调查结果表明,网上关注和事实检查努力之间往往脱节。例如,在大约40%的对10项或10项以上索赔进行事实检查的国家中,有一半或一半以上没有进行事实检查。我们的分析还表明,在平均收到其最终得到的在线关注程度的35%之后,我们首先对索赔要求进行了事实核实。然而,在在线调查中,各组织之间的关注程度相当不同的是:在网上调查中,一些国家的注意力可能大量的注意力在网上评估。