The Intended Uses of Automated Fact-Checking Artefacts: Why, How and Who

Résumé

Automated fact-checking is often presented as an epistemic tool that fact-checkers, social media consumers, and other stakeholders can use to fight misinformation.Nevertheless, few papers thoroughly discuss how.We document this by analysing 100 highly-cited papers, and annotating epistemic elements related to intended use, i.e., means, ends, and stakeholders.We find that narratives leaving out some of these aspects are common, that many papers propose inconsistent means and ends, and that the feasibility of suggested strategies rarely has empirical backing.We argue that this vagueness actively hinders the technology from reaching its goals, as it encourages overclaiming, limits criticism, and prevents stakeholder feedback.Accordingly, we provide several recommendations for thinking and writing about the use of fact-checking artefacts.Automated fact-checking artefacts are no different.The majority of papers envision them as epistemic tools to limit misinformation.In our analysis, we find that 82 out of 100 automated fact-checking papers are motivated as such.Unfortunately, many papers only discuss how this will be achieved in vague terms -authors argue that automated factchecking will be used against misinformation, but not how or by whom (see Figure 1).Connecting research to potential use allows researchers to shape their work in ways that take into account the expressed needs of key stakeholders, such as professional fact-checkers (Nakov et al., 2021).It also enables critical work (Haraway, 1988), and facilitates thinking about unintended shortcomings, e.g., dual use (Leins et al., 2020;

Citer ce document

Accès au document

Ce document est hébergé sur son dépôt institutionnel d'origine.

Auteur(s)

Statistiques

Consultations : 2

Téléchargements : 0