Automated, not Automatic: Needs and practices in European fact-checking organizations as a Basis for Designing Human-Centered AI Systems

To mitigate the negative effects of false information more effectively, the development of Artificial Intelligence (AI) systems assisting fact-checkers is needed. Nevertheless, the lack of focus on the needs of these stakeholders results in their limited acceptance and skepticism toward automating the whole fact-checking process. In this study, we conducted semi-structured in-depth interviews with Central European fact-checkers. Their activities and problems were analyzed using iterative content analysis. The most significant problems were validated with a survey of European fact-checkers, in which we collected 24 responses from 20 countries, i.e., 62\% of active European signatories of the International Fact-Checking Network (IFCN).
Our contributions include an in-depth examination of the variability of fact-checking work in non-English speaking regions, which still remained largely uncovered. By aligning them with the knowledge from prior studies, we created conceptual models that help understand the fact-checking processes. Thanks to the interdisciplinary collaboration, we extend the fact-checking process in AI research by three additional stages. In addition, we mapped our findings on the fact-checkers’ activities and needs to the relevant tasks for AI research. The new opportunities identified for AI researchers and developers have implications for the focus of AI research in this domain.

Cite: Hrckova, A., Moro, R., Srba, I., Simko, J., & Bielikova, M. (2022). Automated, not automatic: Needs and practices in European fact-checking organizations as a basis for designing human-centered AI systems. arXiv preprint arXiv:2211.12143.