Some people have email requirements that don’t fit neatly into the university’s two solutions, Google Mail (for the academic side) and Microsoft Exchange (for Michigan Medicine). To address those needs ITS has brought up an instance of the long-retired Michigan Terminal System (MTS), and provided access to its email tool $MESSAGESYSTEM. MTS is one of the first time-sharing computer operating… Read More »
Recently, BBC Future Now launched a series about the grand challenges we face in the 21st Century. Many on their panel of experts named the breakdown of trusted sources of information as one of the most pressing problems today. Among them was Paul Resnick, professor of information at U-M. Working out who to trust and what to believe has always been… Read More »
The U-M Library, which has a long record of improving the way students go about finding, evaluating, and using information in their academic work, is fighting back against fake news. A marked increase in the online dissemination of intentionally false information has led librarians to join with campus partners at LSA to create a class aimed at helping students develop… Read More »
During the US election, many fake news stories were written, not by politically motivated supporters, but by people looking to make some quick cash. So one way to stop fake news would be to eliminate the financial incentives that make it profitable. “To make any decent money, and a lot of the fake news sites do make decent… Read More »
Facebook, with 1.79 billion monthly active users, has emerged as the main engine for “fake news.” Researchers say they’d like to help Facebook get to grips with its problem. But if you want to work with Facebook’s data, you usually have to become a contractor, work at its campus in Menlo Park, and agree to the company’s terms on what… Read More »
“Fake” news is not limited to politics or celebrity gossip. A study by Ceren Budak, an assistant professor at the School of Information, shows that the most popular health stories on social media may also be the least accurate. For example, four out of five popular posts on Facebook about Zika contained accurate information, but the ones containing… Read More »
Experts say Facebook’s recent move to ban phony news sites from its advertising network will do little to stop the spread of such articles on its platform. That’s because fake news sites rely heavily on Facebook to steer traffic to their stories to generate ad revenue through other ad services, like Google AdSense. Gautam Hans, a clinical fellow… Read More »