Motivations, methods and metrics of misinformation detection : an NLP perspective

Abstract

The rise of misinformation online and offline reveals the erosion of long-standing institutional bulwarks against its propagation in the digitized era. Concerns over the problem are global and the impact is long-lasting. The past few decades have witnessed the critical role of misinformation detection in enhancing public trust and social stability. However, it remains a challenging problem for the Natural Language Processing community. This paper discusses the main issues of misinformation and its detection with a comprehensive review on representative works in terms of detection methods, feature representations, evaluation metrics and reference datasets. Advantages and disadvantages of the key techniques are also addressed with focuses on content-based analysis and predicative modeling. Alternative solutions to anti-misinformation imply a trend of hybrid multi-modal representation, multi-source data and multi-facet inference, e.g., leveraging the language complexity. In spite of decades’ efforts, the dynamic and evolving nature of misrepresented information across different domains, languages, cultures and time spans determines the openness and uncertainty of this restless adventure in the future.