Approaching Internet Fact-Checking Via Crowdsourcing

With the fading popularity of the newspapers, the internet has been the primary source of information for many. People have many sources on the internet that they get their news from. The increased affordability of internet services has led to a great rise in the number of daily internet users. In India alone, the number of internet users has gone up by approximately 146% over the past 5 years. While online newspapers were initially popular, people have taken to alternate sources, the biggest being social media, to receive their news. This poses a serious problem; the possibility of fabricating information and circulating it among the masses as legitimate news from an authentic news agency. This has led to a surge in the amount of 'fake news' people consume on a regular basis. The circulation of fake news has very serious effects, even some as big as affecting election outcomes. The research in this paper is focused on addressing the problem of identifying fake news on the internet via the means of crowdsourcing. Crowdsourcing is the process of obtaining information from a large number of people, typically via the internet. Previous research on the topic has given a standard model for fact-checking via crowdsourcing. This paper aims to address the demerits of previous research papers and improve upon them so as to make crowdsourcing a reliable method of factchecking in an effort to curb the spread of fabricated news on the internet. Keywords: Crowdsource, fact check, fake news, internet