Identifying False Information in the Era of Big Data

Abstract

The emergence and dissemination of false information in the era of big data has greatly affected people's lives, and identifying and correcting such false information is critical to the safety of personal information property and public health. To understand how the public is "influenced" by fake news, this paper surveyed 303 respondents from different ages. Controlled experiments were conducted based on which social platforms they were active on a daily basis, whether the information they often received could be identified as true or false, and whether they were willing to share this information with those around them. In each experiment, the study predicted the accuracy of different groups' judgments of true or false messages, as well as their willingness to share the messages with those around them. In both experiments, information from authoritative organizations or institutions significantly increased the accuracy of participants' judgments and their willingness to share the information with others. In addition, the results of the post-experiment questionnaire showed that participants would consider the authenticity and reliability of the corrected information sources and would confirm them by themselves.