{"title":"Emotion-semantic interaction network for fake news detection: Perspectives on question and non-question comment semantics","authors":"Zhenhua Tan , Tao Zhang","doi":"10.1016/j.ipm.2025.104391","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Current fake news detectors often overlook the association between news content emotion and comment semantics, especially questioning vs. non-questioning language. We observe that fake news evokes distinct comment patterns: non-sad emotions (e.g., anger, surprise) in fake content drive more questioning semantics (e.g., “Where is the video to support this?”) and suppress non-questioning replies, while sadness shows the opposite trend. Ignoring this emotion-semantic interaction limits detection accuracy. To address this limitation, we propose an Emotion-Semantic Interaction Network (ESIN), which learns a latent association between content emotions and comment semantics from questioning and non-questioning perspectives. Specifically, ESIN incorporates the interaction of content emotion with original comment semantics, as well as the distribution of extracted comment semantic categories (i.e., question and non-question), achieved through our proposed mechanisms called Codebook Initialization and Semantic Quantification, based on cross-attention. The ESIN model is comprehensively evaluated on two widely used fake news datasets, namely RumourEval and WeiBo. The ESIN achieves competitive performance, outperforming baseline models by a significant margin of 5.27% and 4.08% in weighted F1-score (F1.) and accuracy (Acc.) on the RumourEval dataset, and by 2.43% and 2.38% in F1. and Acc. on the WeiBo dataset. The promising result verifies the effectiveness of our ESIN model. Theoretically, this study fills a critical gap by highlighting how content emotions shape comment semantics (questioning vs. non-questioning) as a veracity cue, advancing understanding of user engagement patterns in fake news spread. Practically, ESIN offers actionable strategies for platforms to flag high-risk content and equips policymakers with tools for user training and evidence-based regulations, enhancing misinformation mitigation and public trust in digital information ecosystems.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":50365,"journal":{"name":"Information Processing & Management","volume":"63 2","pages":"Article 104391"},"PeriodicalIF":6.9000,"publicationDate":"2025-09-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Information Processing & Management","FirstCategoryId":"94","ListUrlMain":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0306457325003322","RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"COMPUTER SCIENCE, INFORMATION SYSTEMS","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Current fake news detectors often overlook the association between news content emotion and comment semantics, especially questioning vs. non-questioning language. We observe that fake news evokes distinct comment patterns: non-sad emotions (e.g., anger, surprise) in fake content drive more questioning semantics (e.g., “Where is the video to support this?”) and suppress non-questioning replies, while sadness shows the opposite trend. Ignoring this emotion-semantic interaction limits detection accuracy. To address this limitation, we propose an Emotion-Semantic Interaction Network (ESIN), which learns a latent association between content emotions and comment semantics from questioning and non-questioning perspectives. Specifically, ESIN incorporates the interaction of content emotion with original comment semantics, as well as the distribution of extracted comment semantic categories (i.e., question and non-question), achieved through our proposed mechanisms called Codebook Initialization and Semantic Quantification, based on cross-attention. The ESIN model is comprehensively evaluated on two widely used fake news datasets, namely RumourEval and WeiBo. The ESIN achieves competitive performance, outperforming baseline models by a significant margin of 5.27% and 4.08% in weighted F1-score (F1.) and accuracy (Acc.) on the RumourEval dataset, and by 2.43% and 2.38% in F1. and Acc. on the WeiBo dataset. The promising result verifies the effectiveness of our ESIN model. Theoretically, this study fills a critical gap by highlighting how content emotions shape comment semantics (questioning vs. non-questioning) as a veracity cue, advancing understanding of user engagement patterns in fake news spread. Practically, ESIN offers actionable strategies for platforms to flag high-risk content and equips policymakers with tools for user training and evidence-based regulations, enhancing misinformation mitigation and public trust in digital information ecosystems.
期刊介绍:
Information Processing and Management is dedicated to publishing cutting-edge original research at the convergence of computing and information science. Our scope encompasses theory, methods, and applications across various domains, including advertising, business, health, information science, information technology marketing, and social computing.
We aim to cater to the interests of both primary researchers and practitioners by offering an effective platform for the timely dissemination of advanced and topical issues in this interdisciplinary field. The journal places particular emphasis on original research articles, research survey articles, research method articles, and articles addressing critical applications of research. Join us in advancing knowledge and innovation at the intersection of computing and information science.