Fake News Recognition applying Service-based Cross-Media Analytics

Project Information

TRUTHCHECK

Grant agreement ID: 854497

DOI

10.3030/854497

Project closed

EC signature date 30 January 2019

Start date 1 February 2019

End date 31 May 2019

Funded under

• INDUSTRIAL LEADERSHIP - Innovation In SMEs

Total cost

€ 71 429,00

EU contribution

€ 50 000,00

Coordinated by

HENSOLDT Austria GMBH
Austria

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - TRUTHCHECK (Fake News Recognition applying Service-based Cross-Media Analytics)

Reporting period: 2019-02-01 to 2019-05-31

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

Sales is a long process which involves the management of large repositories of Data and to identify

The phenomenon of fake news is as old as human’s ability to communicate. From the onset of civilisation false information has been distributed by adversaries to shape history and make empires rise and fall. But never before has technology made it so easy to spread fake news unfiltered with unprecedented speed straight to unprotected masses, resulting in the disruption of democratic processes. US 2016 elections, Brexit and Catalonia have just been the visible tip of the iceberg. Democracy´s survival depends on the ability to flag fake news and protect citizens from undemocratic influencers, otherwise risking the type of democracy as we know it in Europe.
At SAIL LABS we are developing TruthCheck, a software tool that applies Machine-Learning algorithms, Trust Modelling, Natural Language Processing and Speech, Image and Video Recognition to verify feeds from TV, Radio, Newspapers, Internet and Social Media in 31 languages. TruthCheck will be offered as SaaS -a web tool that provides full, standardised verification options- to private users and educational institutions as free version, and to enterprises, NGOs and governmental institutions as paid version. We also offer it as DaaS (Data-as-a-Service; API-integration into on premise systems for continuous fact checking) to media corporations and brokers to have them assess news feeds directly on our servers.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

The work covers the objectives for the Phase 1 proposal, which includes:
Evaluation of Technical feasibility: definition of the technical plan for the development of TruthCheck, including costs for validation and language expansion to Portuguese, Ukranian and Catalan (Swedich language has been changed to Ukrainian, due to today political interest), and related technical risks.
Evaluation of the commercial feasibility: we analyse the market, today trends, their figures and needs, as well as an analysis of potential competitors. Also a FTO analysis has been carried, and the regulatory and legal issues are analysed.
Financial feasibility and business plan include a sales forecast, EBITDA estimations, and market risks identification. With an initial estimation of 2M€ from Phase 2, indicates an ROI of 4.58. Critical risks (technical and commercial) are analysed.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

The market potential competitors and comprehensive landscape of related sales acceleration software market have been executed. Key clients includes: (1) free users (private users and Education). (2) premium users (SaaS – Software as a Service) – they pay for TruthCheck services and have professional interest. Includes Paying journalists, publishers, other media professionals, government institutions, political institutions (political parties), enterprises and corporation, financial companies (brokerage) and NGOs. Finally, (3) DaaS (Data as a Service) also are payment clients and includes Information and media companies. The use of TruthCheck provides high levels of information and trustworthy by extenside media indexing, which are potentially relevant for such users.
The social impact also includes the potential best information for ALL our society, mitigating the danger of Fake news for our Democracy.

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