misinformation

Crowdsourced investigations shore up democratic institutions by debunking misinformation and uncovering human rights abuses. However, current crowdsourcing approaches rely on simplistic collaborative or competitive models and lack technological sup- port, limiting their collective impact. Prior research has shown that blending elements of competition and collaboration can lead to greater performance and creativity, but crowdsourced investiga- tions pose unique analytical and ethical challenges. In this paper, we employed a four-month-long Research through Design process to design and evaluate a novel interaction style called collabora- tive capture the flag competitions (CoCTFs). We instantiated this interaction style through CoSINT, a platform that enables a trained crowd to work with professional investigators to identify and inves- tigate social media misinformation. Our mixed-methods evaluation showed that CoSINT leverages the complementary strengths of competition and collaboration, allowing a crowd to quickly identify and debunk misinformation. We also highlight tensions between competition versus collaboration and discuss implications for the design of crowdsourced investigations.

Mis- and disinformation can spread rapidly on video-sharing platforms (VSPs). Despite the growing use of VSPs, there has not been a proportional increase in our ability to understand this medium and the messages conveyed through it. In this work, we draw on our prior experiences to outline three core challenges faced in studying VSPs in high-stakes and fast-paced settings: (1) navigating the unique affordances of VSPs, (2) understanding VSP content and determining its authenticity, and (3) novel user behaviors on VSPs for spreading misinformation. By highlighting these challenges, we hope that researchers can reflect on how to adapt existing research methods and tools to these new contexts, or develop entirely new ones.