March 17, 2014
A research group consisting of students and faculty from Human Centered Design & Engineering (HCDE) and the iSchool recently received Best Note for their submission at the iConference 2014 in Berlin.
The publication, "Rumors, False Flags, and Digital Vigilantes: Misinformation on Twitter after the 2013 Boston Marathon Bombing," was authored by HCDE Assistant Professor Kate Starbird, HCDE BS student Jim Maddock, HCDE PhD student Mania Orand, Northwest University Assistant Professor Peg Achteran, and iSchool Professor Robert Mason.
The group researched how misinformation spreads by analyzing thousands of tweets sent during the aftermath of the Boston Marathon bombings, looking for patterns that might indicate a certain tweet is related to a false rumor. Their publication examined three specific rumors to study the propagation of the misinformation and the correction attempts.