How does mis/disinformation spread between social media platforms, particularly primary and secondary platforms? How can it be identified and contained?
Background
Although there is already material evidence on the types of serious harms individuals encounter online, there still remain a number of emerging harms, where the evidence base is still yet to mature (e.g. epilepsy trolling, online animal abuse). SOH would like to close this significant gap in understanding the impact of encountering different types of serious harms online and understanding the best approaches to measuring the impact of the Online Safety legislation.
SOH highlights the importance of Media Literacy in the digital age and asks for further studies to uncover barriers to engagement as well as the effectiveness of DSIT programmes. This issue closely relates to Counter-Disinformation interventions, which requires evidence for its effect on bystanders, topic specific disinformation and what tools can be used to combat this issue.
Research on Safety Technology would greatly develop SOH’s understanding of the relationship that DSIT online safety objectives have with the technology market today. A primary focus lands on improving Age Assurance (AA) measures. This includes ensuring transparency and assessing opportunities for the sector.
Next steps
If you are keen to register your interest in working and connecting with DSIT Digital Technology and Telecoms Group and/or submitting evidence, then please complete the DSIT-ARI Evidence survey - https://dsit.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_cDfmK2OukVAnirs.
Please view full details: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/department-for-science-innovation-and-technology-areas-of-research-interest/dsit-areas-of-research-interest-2024
Source
This question was published as part of the set of ARIs in this document:
Related UKRI funded projects
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An innovative, AI-driven application that helps users assess/action information pollution for social media content.
Sway is a UK-based social media safety technology SME with a core project team of Mike Bennett (CEO and serial entrepreneur), Daniela Fernandez (CXO and entrepreneur) and Alan Simpson (CTO and digital transformation stra...
Funded by: Innovate UK
Why might this be relevant?
The project addresses the spread of mis/disinformation on social media platforms and provides a solution for identifying and containing it.
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Digital Wildfire: (Mis)information flows, propagation and responsible governance
The rapid growth of social media platforms such as Twitter has had a significant impact on the way people can connect and communicate instantaneously with others. The content that users put onto social media platforms ca...
Funded by: ESRC
Why might this be relevant?
The project specifically focuses on understanding how misinformation spreads on social media platforms and aims to develop tools to detect and visualize misinformation.
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Digital Knowledge: A New Framework for Digital Epistemic Virtues
We are increasingly in the grips of an information epidemic, which the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic - and the spread of health misinformation online along with rising distrust of experts - has only served to highlight with ...
Funded by: AHRC
Why might this be relevant?
The project addresses the spread of misinformation online and focuses on developing new frameworks for understanding and combating the issue, although it does not directly address the identification and containment of misinformation.