Doctoral Student Recognized for Award-Winning AI Research on Combating Online Misinformation

Gibson Nkhata, a doctoral student in the College of Engineering at the University of Arkansas, earned a best paper award at the 24th IEEE/WIC International Conference on Web Intelligence and Intelligent Agent Technology, held Nov. 15-18 in London, United Kingdom.

This international conference, organized by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) and the Web Intelligence Consortium (WIC), brings together researchers, professionals and industry experts to share research and real-world applications exploring how artificial intelligence (AI) functions in a connected world. Topics include how AI interacts with people, data, devices, trust, society, health care, industry and smart living.

Nkhata's paper, titled "Verifying Rumors via Stance-Aware Structural Modeling," examines the importance of verifying information and rumors on social media to limit the spread of misinformation. User responses to a post, whether they support, question or deny a claim, can provide important clues about the credibility of the information. However, many existing AI models struggle to analyze post content, user stance and conversation structure simultaneously, particularly in longer threads.

This research introduces a "stance-aware modeling approach" that groups responses by stance and analyzes both the content and user position within a conversation. This method also accounts for how stances are distributed and how far replies appear in a discussion. Tests on widely used data sets show this approach outperforms previous methods in accurately predicting whether information in a post is true. This approach also performs well in early detection across different social media platforms.

Nkhata's research demonstrates both the technical and real-world relevance of identifying false information on social media. Recognition of Nkhata's work by IEEE/WIC stresses the growing impact of interdisciplinary research and acknowledges the significant contributions being made at the U of A to advance the understanding and practical application of web intelligence technologies.