Abdulfatai Popoola, Dmytro Krasnoshtan, Attila Toth, Victor Naroditskiy, Carlos Castillo, Patrick Meier and Iyad Rahwan: Information Verification During Natural Disasters. In SWDM workshop, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. 2013. See also: http://www.veri.ly/ ========================= - Video #1 (Al Jazeera): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w4TmT_o8wy4 - Video #2 (CNN): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pAHoEO-K0Ek

1. Information Verification
During Natural Disasters
Abdulfatai Popoola, Dmytro Krasnoshtan, Attila Toth, Victor
Naroditskiy, Carlos Castillo, Patrick Meier and Iyad Rahwan

4. Video: Boston; when the
media gets it wrong
April 2013 – Al Jazeera

5. 5
Carlos Castillo – chato@acm.org
http://www.chato.cl/research/
Boston Marathon Bombings
• April 13, 2013 - Bombings
• Reddit and 4chan users post photos of
possible suspects
• April 18, 2013 – NY Post front-page story
with photos of misidentified suspects
• Traditional media blames social media

6. Video: Social Media and the
Boston bombings (edited)
April 2013 - CNN

7. 7
Carlos Castillo – chato@acm.org
http://www.chato.cl/research/
Selected quotes from CNN discussion
• “We could wonder if the NY Post would
have had this terribly irresponsible
coverage if it weren't for Reddit”
• “There were rational people on Reddit
and social media”
• “Do you think everything you read on Twitter
is real? -No, but it is hard to know”

8. 8
Carlos Castillo – chato@acm.org
http://www.chato.cl/research/
Motivation
• It might be the case that posting funny
memes and verifying information using
social media require different tools
• The repertoire of mass-interaction
mechanisms we know of is quite limited

9. Context

10. 10
Carlos Castillo – chato@acm.org
http://www.chato.cl/research/
BBC's User-Generated Content Hub
• Contrasting sources from social media
• Interviewing individuals
• Metrics
– Number of followers, number of reputable
followers, history of activity

11. 11
Carlos Castillo – chato@acm.org
http://www.chato.cl/research/
Storyful
• “Social media news agency”
• Verification of authenticity of photo and
video evidence
• Time of day (shadows), weather,
landmarks, etc.
• Accents spoken, ambient noises, etc.

12. 12
Carlos Castillo – chato@acm.org
http://www.chato.cl/research/
Many others
• Truth in social media is a
widespread concern
• Journalists
– Verify, verify, verify.
• Computer scientists
– Apply ML/IR/NLP/etc.
Castillo C, Mendoza M, Poblete B (2011): Information Credibility on Twitter.
Proceedings of WWW Conference.

13. 13
Carlos Castillo – chato@acm.org
http://www.chato.cl/research/
Time-critical social mobilization
• DARPA Red
Balloon
Challenge

14. 14
Carlos Castillo – chato@acm.org
http://www.chato.cl/research/
Recursive incentives
• Winner's
strategy:
recursive
incentives
Pickard G, Pan W, Rahwan I, Cebrian M, Crane R, Madan A, and Pentland A (2011):
Time-Critical Social Mobilization. Science 28 October 2011: 334 (6055), 509-512.
Naroditskiy V, Rahwan I, Cebrian M, Jennings NR (2012):
Verification in Referral-Based Crowdsourcing. PLoS ONE 7(10): e45924.

15. Design

16. 16
Carlos Castillo – chato@acm.org
http://www.chato.cl/research/
Crisis → Claim → Evidence
• Crisis
• Claim
• Evidence
Boston Marathon bombings
Link to official police report
An arrest has been made in
connection to the bombings

17. 17
Carlos Castillo – chato@acm.org
http://www.chato.cl/research/
Example claims

18. 18
Carlos Castillo – chato@acm.org
http://www.chato.cl/research/
Elements of a claim
Media, if available
Location
Title, description,
dates, tags
Weight of evidence
for/against & importance

22. Open the “submit
evidence” dialog.
Promotes this claim

23. Evidence overlay
in claim page
Displays
supporting
media
Allow users to
vote evidence
up/down,
optionally
commenting

24. 24
Carlos Castillo – chato@acm.org
http://www.chato.cl/research/
Other aspects
• Recursive incentives
– Recruiting is encouraged
• Point-based system
– Gamification
– Social recognition / influence
• Subscription to crises, etc.
• Platform actively being developed

25. Closing remarks

26. 26
Carlos Castillo – chato@acm.org
http://www.chato.cl/research/
The interaction mechanisms we
know of are quite rudimentary
We can design specialized
platforms for mass interaction
for specialized goals

27. Subscribe at www.veri.ly
Follow @VeriDotLy

28. Thank you!
Carlos Castillo · chato@acm.org
http://www.chato.cl/research/