198 | 29, pp. 197-212 | doxa.comunicación

July-December of 2019

Artificial intelligence and journalism: diluting the impact of disinformation and fake news through bots

ISSN: 1696-019X / e-ISSN: 2386-3978

1. Introduction

Disinformation and fake news disseminated on the internet are a matter of great concern to countries, organizations, and media outlets. The underlying questions are: what is true and what is false on the Internet? How can we fight against fake news and the spread of hoaxes? How can we detect fake news?

We start from the undeniable principle that every citizen has the right to receive quality information, and the media must ensure that this information is truthful. This principle should not only be adopted by news organizations, but also information professionals who are either individually or collectively engaged in creating and disseminating news. However, citizens have not always had access to accurate information in recent years. Several studies show that access to fake news (unverified information) is higher than access to contrasted or verified news.

Although people have been propagating fake news for some time, nowadays, there are other ways of sharing it whether it be via social media, the internet, mobile phones, or artificial intelligence in the form of bots that disseminate fake news. All of these elements contribute to the diffusion of fake news and disinformation on a global scale. However, Artificial Intelligence (AI), can also help citizens counteract being disinformed by fake news. The strategy is based on fighting against it using the same weapons. In other words, fake news or hoaxes are disseminated by a form of artificial intelligence, such as bots (acronym for robots) through various digital media for illicit and harmful purposes, on the other hand, algorithmic developments creating “good bots” can help us to counteract such fake news.

For several analysts, fake news discredits politicians’ images and can even incite murder. In the latter case, messages sent via WhatsApp provoked a state of psychosis in India, which resulted in dozens of innocent people being executed. According to the consulting firm Gartner (2017), in 2022, western audiences will consume more fake news than true news. Any fake news circulated on the internet travels at speeds infinitely faster than a rumor or hoax that has been spread at any time in history. More and more experts agree that fake news is more than over seventy percent more likely to be viralized or replicated than true news and this (true) news must be up to six times longer than fake news to reach only 1,500 people.

This viral phenomenon comes from disruptive emerging technologies, the same ones we can use to prevent fake news from going viral, through innovations that have been taking place in the area of Artificial Intelligence. Although people have spread fake news and hoaxes by using bots, Artificial Intelligence has been used to help citizens counteract the disinformation from unverified news in recent years. The strategy is based on initiatives such as developing and creating “good bots” and algorithms designed to verify information. To do this, the AI would be able to read the informational chaos (infoxification) on the Internet and confirm the most dubious news, warning users (readers) about which news items belong to the controversial category of “fake news.” The drawback is that many of the artificial intelligence initiatives to counter fakes are still in the experimental phase.

The article analyzes some types of Artificial Intelligence- such as bots- designed and created to aid news organizations in verifying the information and ensuring that readers who receive reliable and credible information. Therefore,