The starting point were appearances, which could be a post, an image, a news article, or another form of disinformation. These form a claim instance which is a collection of similar appearances linked to a debunking article that addresses the disinformation in the claim.
The claim instance, in turn, is an occurrence within the claim cluster, representing the generic overarching informative claim. The claim cluster also includes a time period in which the cluster exists, as well as a related topic.
Additionally, two types of content are developed from the claim cluster and correlate to the different claim instances. The first is reused content, which is information from the claim cluster that is used in multiple instances. Developing from the reused content are reused entities, which are specific examples of the reused content.
The second type of content is adaptive content, which is a change to the claim cluster that makes the claim instance unique. Adaptive entities are specific examples that follow the adaptive content. It is also possible for a claim instance to introduce another claim cluster which has different reused content from the first claim cluster.
Finally, at the closing event the participants presented a semantic model for describing disinformation spread with all its elements, and proposed a methodology for identifying and anticipating such disinformation spreading. Their solutions give answers to questions such as:
The data sprint was successful in producing several results with regards to internationally spread disinformation campaigns. These results include:
The findings from this project are expected to be beneficial for both investigators and other participants of the 2023 Winter School to gain insights into the dynamics of disinformation as well as to discover efficient methods of avoiding it.
For more information see also the project wiki page on the DMI website.
The process and outcome of the work are also summarized in two posters (1, 2) and narrated videos (3, 4).
Author: Eneya Georgieva (Ontotext)
Facilitators: Andrey Tagarev, Eneya Georgieva (Ontotext)
Participants in the project: Alissa Drieduite, Andrea Moreno, Anna-Lisa Vuijk, Claire Verplanke, Dave Wismeijer, Ivar de Jong, Jady van Leusden, Kris Chu, Lorence Li, Luwe Groot, Min Young Park, Ruben den Harder, Sheung Yiu, Tamás Molnár, Wenhao Zhou, Yaiza Zarza-Franklin.
Editor: Jochen Spangenberg (DW)