IN DEPTH
Tackling mutant daisies and fake Melanias
London South Bank University’s Alison Skoyles et al talk about a conference they organised to round up some of the most effective strategies to tackle fake news.
THE Information Skills Advisers at London South Bank University decided to host a conference around the topical issue of fake news. This is Not a Fake Conference took place on 5 June (see
https://bit.ly/2Nb1ybd). During the process of researching and creating our own workshops on fake news and evaluating information, we came across initiatives from across the world and at many different institutions and organisa- tions. We thought it would be useful and interesting to arrange an event where infor- mation professionals could get together to present and discuss the projects they had developed in this area.
We sent out a request for proposals, and we were soon inundated with submissions. We put together a packed programme for the day. Delegates came from across the UK, and the event was soon sold out. The conference was opened by Alison Chojna, Head of Library and Learning Resources at LSBU, who welcomed the speakers and delegates to the university. We used Mentimeter so that delegates could say which sector they worked in and how far they had travelled.
Algorithms can’t take on fake news The first speaker was Adam Blackwell from ProQuest. His presentation, The Good News About Fake News: It’s a much bigger problem than you thought!, was a great jumping off point for the conference as he demonstrated a model he had devised to identify fake news, and differentiate it from satire. He went on to demonstrate real life
34 INFORMATION PROFESSIONAL
Kathy Neville (@KathyNeville9), Erin Bloxsidge (@erinbloxsidge), Marian Brown (@ mlb303) and Alison Skoyles (@alisonskoyles) are Information Skills Advisers, London South Bank University.
examples of fake news such as the Pope endorsing Donald Trump’s presidential candidacy. He suggested that people believe these stories, even when proved wrong, simply because they want to. Adam con- cluded that, despite their best efforts, tech companies will not be able to combat fake news by changing algorithms – it is down to educators.
Proliferation
Carol Hollier from the University of Nottingham was next up. Carol gave an overview of how the proliferation of online fake news had grown since 2016 – from news outlets reporting on the phenomenon, to fake news platforms themselves gaining a larger profile. To address this, librarians at the University of Nottingham created workshops introducing students to concepts
September 2018
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