The National Science Foundation (NSF) Convergence Accelerator, a new program designed to address national-scale societal challenges, has awarded $750,000 to a multidisciplinary team of researchers led by CSMR experts.

The project, “Misinformation Judgments with Public Legitimacy,” aims to develop jury-led services to identify and rectify misinformation on communication platforms. The goal of the services will be to make partially subjective judgments on content moderation in a way that the public accepts as legitimate, regardless of their political leaning. Paul Resnick is the project director, David Jurgens is one of the co-principal investigators, and James Park is the project manager.

“Almost everyone agrees that search and social media platforms should limit the spread of misinformation. They don't always agree, however, about exactly which content is misinforming,” says Resnick. “The core idea is to provide juries with fact-checks and other information related to a post and have the jurors deliberate before rendering judgments. By deferring to publicly legitimate judgments, platforms will act on misinformation more transparently, consistently, and effectively."

Joining Resnick, Jurgens, and Park on this initiative are:

Amy Zhang, University of Washington
David Rand, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Adam Berinsky, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Benji Loney, TrustLab

As part of the Convergence Accelerator’s Trust & Authenticity in Communication Systems research track, the project addresses the urgent need for tools and techniques to help the nation effectively prevent, mitigate, and adapt to critical threats to communication systems.

Read the announcement from the U-M School of Information