Gabriel Garcia Marquez is one of my favorite authors. I used to scour the web for news - any news - of the Nobel laureate’s activities, writings, speeches, appearances as his health was quickly deteriorating.
One day, I found a news story about him and a farewell letter he had apparently published before he died. The story was reproduced by many news sites around the world and was translated in many languages.
However, reading the article, where Marquez’ letter was quoted in its entirety, I became suspicious: is this true? It sounded like Marquez, but to anyone intimate with his writing it was not very difficult to see that there was a tone unfamiliar to Marquez’ style.
One of the many version of the fake farewell letter that appeared online Source: Original source unknown
There was something rather melodramatic about it that did not fit in with the master storyteller’s writing voice. But there was no way to verify if Marquez’s farewell letter was authentic or if the article was fake news.
Sure enough, a few days later in question. This is just one example of many untruths and inaccuracies that have entered our lives as we hit the web for news and information.
Web consumers are soon to have a weapon to defend themselves against lies and misinformation.
Named 'FightHoax,' a new software that claims to detect ‘fake news' is being created by Valentinos Tzekas, a 20-year-old university student in Greece.
Tzekas says he was fed up with all the rubbish on the web and that he decided to act. He developed a software that analyses published material to determine its credibility.
“The results from the analysis basically tell you if you can trust what you are reading, if it’s truthful or they are lies, in other words, a hoax,” he said to SBS Greek.
Tzekas claims that is 89% accurate in its analysis which gives it a world–first status. The software, according to Tzekas, also detects if the articles employ propagandist language or expressions laden with questionable meaning.
Valentinos Tzekas, a 20-year-old uni student in Greece and the developer of 'Fight Hoax' a new software system designed to fight the spread of 'Fake News' Source: Photo by Anastasia Gadoglou, Supplied, with permission by Valintos
"Another important feature of this software is that it gives further published material on a topic you are looking up which present a different point of view, a different argument, it gives you the other side of the story you have just read,” says Tzekas.
“A student in a neighbouring country gave up his studies to concentrate on his website which manufactured fake news. Soon he was earning more than his parents' combined income."
FightHoax also provides information on the writer’s credentials, says Tzekas, whether he/she is an experienced journalist or a startup.
While he was mulling over the idea for developing this sort of software, Tzekas stumbled across a piece of information that made him realize that ‘fake news’ is big business.
“A student in a neighbouring country gave up his studies to concentrate on his website which manufactured fake news," says Tzekas. "Soon he was earning more than his parents' combined income."
"I realized that a business model was being developed around fake news."
For the young Greek student the challenge of dismantling ‘fake news’ was too big to resist. He says that FighHoax is already being used by large news agencies in Greece.
“FightHoax is very useful to journalists. It’s a tool which allows them to do better research faster,” says Tzekas. "It has the capacity to analyse hundreds of articles within a few minutes instead of the user analyzing the article one by one."
“I am already in partnership with news agencies,” he says. “And as the next step it will go to universities and then start up businesses”
But Tzekas has bigger ambitions for FightHoax. He wants a partnership with the internet giants such as Google and Facebook.
“They have the power of the internet,” Tzekas says.
He cites Facebook as the tool with the capacity to analyse thousands of article as soon as they appear on the internet or even warn the user to cross reference his information before he hits “upload."
