Combating Misinformation/ Disinformation in Online Social Media: A Multidisciplinary View

Abstract

Recently, the viral propagation of mis/disinformation has raised significant concerns from both academia and industry. This problem is particularly difficult because on the one hand, rapidly evolving technology makes it much cheaper and easier to manipulate and propagate social media information. On the other hand, the complexity of human psychology and sociology makes the understanding, prediction and prevention of users' involvement in mis/disinformation propagation very difficult. This themed series on "Multi-Disciplinary Dis/Misinformation Analysis and Countermeasures" aims to bring the attention and efforts from researchers in relevant disciplines together to tackle this challenging problem. In addition, on October 20th, 2021, and March 7th 2022, some of the guest editorial team members organized two panel discussions on "Social Media Disinformation and its Impact on Public Health During the COVID-19 Pandemic," and on "Dis/Misinformation Analysis and Countermeasures - A Computational Viewpoint." This article summarizes the key discussion items at these two panels and hopes to shed light on the future directions.