Claimspotting: On the Role and Automation of Fact-Checking

Disinformation and fake news are not new, but digitalization and mediatization have taken the problem to a new level. The dissertation project aims to gain a better understanding and possible solutions. Through a quantitative content analysis of fact checks by German organizations, Sami wants to find out what disinformation is actually about. Which topics are in the foreground and who are the target persons? A natural language tool will then be developed that uses these findings to identify claims that potentially contain false information. The tool is designed to help fact-checkers in their work. Instead of manually checking Facebook, Twitter or “alternative” media, the tool pre-selects suspicious claims.