Software developed by University College London & UC Berkeley can identify ‘fake news’ sites with 90% accuracy from r/Futurology
Machine learning tool deUC Berveloped to detect fake news domains when they register
http://www.businessmole.com/tool-developed-by-university-college-london-can-identify-fake-news-sites-when-they-are-registered/
Al is not lost though, as academics from UCL and several other institutions have developed a tool that may help us separate the fact from fiction. They have designed a machine learning tool which can cite domains that were created to spread what has now commonly become known as ‘fake news’.
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more on fake news in this IMS blog
https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims?s=fake+news
https://english.elpais.com/politics/2020-11-09/spain-to-monitor-online-fake-news-and-give-a-political-response-to-disinformation-campaigns.html
While the text does not mention specific cases, Russian interference has been proven in the 2016 election campaign in the United States, which saw Donald Trump victorious, as well as the Brexit referendum in the United Kingdom the same year, which saw voters narrowly decide they wanted their country to leave the European Union.
the text relies on the classification of the European Commission: “Verifiably false or misleading information created, presented and disseminated for economic gain or to intentionally deceive the public.” This includes electoral processes, but also sectors such as health, environment or security. The text underlines that the current coronavirus pandemic has been accompanied by an “unprecedented infodemic,” i.e. a proliferation of fake news.
The document recognizes that the “news media, digital platforms, academic world, technology sector, NGOs and society in general play an essential role in the fight against disinformation, with actions such as its identification and not contributing to its spread, the promotion of activities that raise awareness and training or the development of tools to avoid its propagation.”
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more on fake news in this IMS blog
https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims?s=fake+news
https://www.edsurge.com/news/2019-12-27-fighting-fake-news-in-the-classroom
PISA scores were recently released, and results of the international test revealed that only 14 percent of U.S. students were able to reliably distinguish between fact and opinion.
according to Pew Research Center, 68 percent of American adults get their news from social media—platforms where opinion is often presented as fact. While Facebook and other social media outlets have pledged to tackle fake news, the results are lackluster.
Even on seemingly-serious websites, credibility is not a given. When I was in middle and high school, we were taught that we could trust .org websites. Now, with the practice of astroturfing, responsible consumers of information must dig deeper and go further to verify the legitimacy of information. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/astroturfing
Experiences like these, where students are challenged to consider the validity of information and sort what’s real from what’s fake, would better prepare them not only to be savvier consumers of news, but also to someday digest contradictory information to make complicated decisions about their own health care, finances or civic engagement.
freely available resources to help educators teach how to vet information and think critically about real-world topics.
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more fake news in this IMS blog
https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims?s=%23fakenews
https://www.edsurge.com/news/2019-09-24-the-challenge-of-teaching-news-literacy
Everybody’s talking about deepfakes in 2020, that’s not something we were talking about in 2016, maybe even in 2018.
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more on news literate in this IMS blog
https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims?s=news+literate
As Charters Face Growing Opposition, NewSchools Summit Makes Its Case
https://www.edsurge.com/news/2019-05-14-as-charters-face-growing-opposition-newschools-summit-makes-its-case
for the past 21 years its organizer, the Oakland, Calif.-based nonprofit known as NewSchools Venture Fund, has also put millions of dollars into novel schools in public districts
Charter schools operate with public funding, and sometimes philanthropic support, but are managed by an outside organization that is independent from local district oversight. In California, they are run by nonprofit organizations with self-elected boards. (For-profit charters are outlawed.)
Their supporters and operators—who make up the vast majority of the 1,300-plus attendees at this year’s Summit—say the model offers the flexibility needed to introduce, test and adopt new curriculum, tools and pedagogical approaches that could better serve students, particularly in low-income and minority communities.
Rocketship Education was an early showcase for blended learning, where students rotate between working on computers and in small groups with teachers. Summit Public Schools, a network of charters that now claims a nationwide footprint, promotes project-based learning assisted by an online learning platform.
But charters have also attracted an increasingly vocal opposition, who charge them with funneling students, teachers and funds from traditional district schools. Aside from raising teacher salaries, a sticking point in the recent California teachers’ strikes in Los Angeles and Oakland has been stopping the growth of charter schools.
Detractors can point to fully-virtual charters, run by for-profit companies, that have been fined for misleading claims and graduating students at rates far below those at traditional schools. At the same time, research suggests that students attending charter schools in urban regions outperform their peers in traditional school settings.
While the first decade of this century saw double-digit percentage increase in the number of such schools, it has almost entirely plateaued (at 1 percent growth) in the 2017-2018 school year, according to data from the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools.
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more on charter schools in this IMS blog
https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims?s=charter
https://www.nytimes.com/video/opinion/100000006188102/what-is-pizzagate.html
Russia and far right spreading disinformation ahead of EU elections, investigators say
‘The goal here is bigger than any one election. It is to constantly divide, increase distrust and undermine our faith in institutions and democracy itself’
Matt Apuzzo, Adam Satariano 2019-05-12T13:13:04+01:00″
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/eu-elections-latest-russia-far-right-interference-fake-news-meddling-a8910311.html