The phenomenon of fake news has taken on a global dimension and needs to be addressed through synergies with documentation and training, said Mr. Larkos Larkou, the Chairman of the Cyprus News Agency (CNA).
Mr. Larkou spoke during the presentation of Truly Media, an online collaborative platform that helps journalists and other organizations verify social networking in an attempt to counter the spread of false news.
Truly Media platform was developed by the Athens Technology Center (ATC), in cooperation with Deutsche Welle, to support journalists in verifying the content of posts. The platform used the German news agency DPA and Bayerischer Rundfunk during the recent German elections last September to collect and verify subscriptions of social network users.
The platform is used, inter alia, by the Deutsche Welle editorial team, as well as by Amnesty International, and is a subscription.
By incorporating a multitude of tools, the Truly Media platform allows journalists or journalists of an organization to verify the validity of real-time photos, videos, or social accounts.
Through mapping and 3D site mapping, comparison with other photos or weather information, journalists can check whether a particular post is true, and the possibility of collaboration between different organizations.
At the same time, the company is developing a system called “Truthnest” which will be integrated at a future stage on the existing platform so that the information contained in the post text can be verified.
Mr. Nikos Pantazopoulos, on behalf of ATC said that since 2012, when the false news began, the company began to deal with ways to deal with it. At the same time, he added, the decision of large news organizations to set up social networking teams to protect themselves from relaying false news came.
Mr. Stratos Tzoannos, Head of the Truly Media development team, said the problem of fake news is getting bigger, with journalists looking for solutions by verifying posts and collaborating with other organizations.
By introducing the application, he also said that it operates in three stages, searching for and extracting content from social networks, organizing content, and verifying.
The presentation was held at the offices of the CNA, in the presence of the Director of CYPRUS Giorgos Pentetas. Also, leaders or representatives of organizations, including Personal Data Protection Commissioner Irene Loizidou-Nikolaidou, Director of the Press and Information Office, Sophia Michailidou, President of the Union of Government Editors George Frangos, Chairman of the Journalist Ethics Committee, George Pavlidis, the Cyprus Radio and Television Authority Rona Petri – Kasapi and the Police Spokesperson Andreas Angelidis.
