Abstract
Information has been an essential element in the development of collaborative and cooperative models. From decision making to the attainment of varying goals, people have been relatively adept at making judgments about the trustworthiness of information, based on knowledge and understanding of a normative model of information. However, recent events, for example in elections and referenda, have stretched the ability of people to be able to measure the veracity and trustworthiness of information online. The result has been an erosion of trust in information online, its source, its value and the ability to objectively determine the trustworthiness of a piece of information, a situation made more complex by social networks, since social media have made the spread of (potentially untrustworthy) information easier and faster. We believe that this exacerbated the need for assisting humans in their judgment of the trustworthiness of information. We have begun working on a social cognitive construct: a trust model for information. In this paper we outline the problems and the beginnings of our trust model and highlight future work.
Highlights
We propose an information trustworthiness model based on computational trust [16]
Information and by extension misinformation has a social undertone, because it is seen as an observation of individuals or groups formed through cultural and social observance, as Tuominen and Savolainen put it “a communicative construct produced in a social context” [33]
The need to look at the social side of trust in tackling the social undertone associated with misinformation
Summary
Information does not exist in a vacuum, how it is perceived and used is influenced by a number of social, cultural, and historical factors. Regardless of the validity of information, people still go ahead to share because it serves a narrative, a means to manipulate rather than to inform, as a source of social influence [4]. This situation is aptly demonstrated by the recent political and business climate in the west that have added relatively new lexicons like “fake news” and “alternate facts.”. The consequences of deceptive and misleading information can be far-reaching for governments, citizens, business institutions, data professionals, and designers It can create an atmosphere of mistrust, distrust, confusion or panic.
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