How NYU Tandon is battling back against disinformation

If information is currency, then truth is the gold standard. But threats to truth are omnipresent, especially in the digital realm. Learn how researchers at NYU Tandon are using technology as a critical tool to battle disinformation and misinformation, evaluate accuracy, flag problems, and elevate all of us to a higher information standard. 

Tracking social platform engagement with misinformation
The Cybersecurity for Democracy research team at Tandon found that politically extreme content sources tend to generate more interactions from users on Facebook, and that far-right news sources designated as spreaders of misinformation had an average of 426 interactions per thousand followers per week — roughly 65% more than non-misinformation sources.

Fighting false information with credibility indicators
A team led by researchers at NYU Tandon discover that credibility indicators flagging spurious headlines can reduce intention to share non-true news, though demographics and political affiliation influence their effectiveness.

Detecting deepfakes
A team of researchers demonstrated an approach that can successfully address reliability problems with conventional forensic analysis in complex distribution channels. Their approach — performing end-to-end, joint optimization of a forensic analysis network and a neural imaging pipeline — obtained significant improvements in photo manipulation detection, increasing accuracy from ≈ 45% to over 90%.

Learn other ways NYU Tandon is improving cybersecurity.