An overview of online fake news: Characterization, detection, and discussion

Over the recent years, the growth of online social media has greatly facilitated the way people communicate with each other. Users of online social media share information, connect with other people and stay informed about trending events. However, much recent information appearing on social media is dubious and, in some cases, intended to mislead. Such content is often called fake news. Large amounts of online fake news has the potential to cause serious problems in society. Many point to the 2016 U.S. presidential election campaign as having been influenced by fake news. Subsequent to this election, the term has entered the mainstream vernacular. Moreover it has drawn the attention of industry and academia, seeking to understand its origins, distribution and effects. Of critical interest is the ability to detect when online content is untrue and intended to mislead. This is technically challenging for several reasons. Using social media tools, content is easily generated and quickly spread, leading to a large volume of content to analyse. Online information is very diverse, covering a large number of subjects, which contributes complexity to this task. The truth and intent of any statement often cannot be assessed by computers alone, so efforts must depend on collaboration between humans and technology. For instance, some content that is deemed by experts of being false and intended to mislead are available. While these sources are in limited supply, they can form a basis for such a shared effort. In this survey, we present a comprehensive overview of the finding to date relating to fake news. We characterize the negative impact of online fake news, and the state-of-the-art in detection methods. Many of these rely on identifying features of the users, content, and context that indicate misinformation. We also study existing datasets that have been used for classifying fake news. Finally, we propose promising research directions for online fake news analysis.