Cutting-edge technologies gave the world fake news, but researchers from the University of Waterloo’s Faculty of Engineering are developing even newer technology to stop it. Their innovative system—the first of its kind—relies .
Cutting-edge technologies gave the world fake news, but researchers from the University of Waterloo’s Faculty of Engineering are developing even newer technology to stop it. Their innovative system—the first of its kind—relies on something already famous for underpinning Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies—blockchain. But in addition to sophisticated machines, these researchers are enlisting humans to establish the truth. Their goal is a world where people have greater trust in the news they see and hear.
The danger of disinformation—or fake news—to democracy is real. There is evidence fake news could have influenced how people voted in two important political events in 2016: Brexit, the exit of the United Kingdom from the European Union; and the U.S. presidential election that put Donald Trump in power. More recently the Canadian government has warned Canadians to be aware of a Russian campaign of disinformation surrounding that country’s war against Ukraine. Although big tech companies—including Facebook and Google—have established policies to prevent the spread of fake news on their platforms, they’ve had limited success.
A team of Waterloo researchers hopes to do better. According to Chien-Chih Chen, one of the project’s lead researchers and a Ph.D. candidate in electrical and computer engineering, the system he and his colleagues have developed over the past three years is « unique, » and consists of three main components.
