Crowd-Sourcing – Page 14 – Public Intelligence Blog

Analyzing Fake Content on Twitter During Boston Marathon Bombings

As iRevolution readers already know, the application of Information Forensics to social media is one of my primary areas of interest. So I’m always on the lookout for new and related studies, such as this one (PDF), which was just published by colleagues of mine in India. The study by Aditi Gupta et al. analyzes fake content shared on Twitter during the Boston Marathon Bombings earlier this year.

Gupta et al. collected close to 8 million unique tweets posted by 3.7 million unique users between April 15-19th, 2013. The table below provides more details. The authors found that rumors and fake content comprised 29% of the content that went viral on Twitter, while 51% of the content constituted generic opinions and comments. The remaining 20% relayed true information. Interestingly, approximately 75% of fake tweets were propagated via mobile phone devices compared to true tweets which comprised 64% of tweets posted via mobiles.

The authors also found that many users with high social reputation and verified accounts were responsible for spreading the bulk of the fake content posted to Twitter. Indeed, the study shows that fake content did not travel rapidly during the first hour after the bombing. Rumors and fake information only goes viral after Twitter users with large numbers of followers start propagating the fake content. To this end, “determining whether some information is true or fake, based on only factors based on high number of followers and veriﬁed accounts is not possible in the initial hours.”

Continue reading “Patrick Meier: Analyzing Fake Content on Twitter During Boston Marathon Bombings”

2013/10/192013/10/19

Jean Lievens: The Sharing Economy – Sharing Space with Capitalism

Crowd-Sourcing, Economics/True Cost, Governance, Innovation, P2P / Panarchy, Resilience

The Sharing Economy Isn't Quite a Kick to Capitalism's Crotch

Joshua Brustein

Bloomberg Businessweek, 18 October 2013

I was invited to a potluck dinner on Wednesday to meet a bunch of strangers and discuss the importance of sharing. Well, kind of. Our hosts were looking to bolster the so-called sharing economy, which, depending on who you talk to, is either a lightweight form of socialism or an artisanal flavor of capitalism spawned by the Internet.

The event had clearly attracted people from both camps. It wasn’t long before one guest trumpeted a desire to “kick capitalism in the crotch,” while several others gently reminded people to sign a petition supporting Airbnb, the peer-to-peer apartment renting service. One man offered to sing a few songs. I spent much of the evening wondering why my red pepper hummus, which is always a hit at Super Bowl parties, wasn’t as popular as the vegan mac ‘n’ cheese. Plus whoever made the salad put in way too many red onions.

Standing in the cloudy center of all this was a group called Peers, which popped up over the summer with the goal of becoming a grassroots movement based on sharing. The potluck dinner—and about 130 other events taking place in 90 cities around the world on the same week—is its first big push to bring people to the cause.

STORY: Airbnb, Coursera, and Uber: The Rise of the Disruption Economy

There have been movements based on sharing before, as my aging hippie parents remind me with increasing regularity. But the brand-name version is relatively new. In the past few years, a series of startups have based their business models on creating online platforms where people can sell one another access to their homes (Airbnb), labor (Taskrabbit), or possessions (Lyft, Sidecar). These companies bathe in the spirit of cooperation—and it’s clearly to their benefit to frame themselves as facilitators of generosity—but they are also marketplaces looking for commissions.

Read full article.

2013/10/17

Patrick Meier: World Disaster Report: Next Generation Humanitarian Technology

Crowd-Sourcing, Data, Design, Economics/True Cost, Governance

World Disaster Report: Next Generation Humanitarian Technology

Posted onOctober 17, 2013 | Leave a comment

This year’s World Disaster Report was just released this morning. I had the honor of authoring Chapter 3 on “Strengthening Humanitarian Information: The Role of Technology.” The chapter focuses on the rise of “Digital Humanitarians” and explains how “Next Generation Humanitarian Technology” is used to manage Big (Crisis) Data. The chapter complements the groundbreaking report “Humanitarianism in the Network Age” published by UN OCHA earlier this year.

Learn more, includes video.

2013/10/15

Patrick Meier: Humanitarian Crisis Computing 101

Crowd-Sourcing, Data, Governance

Disaster-affected communities are increasingly becoming “digital” communities. That is, they increasingly use mobile technology & social media to communicate during crises. I often refer to this user-generated content as Big (Crisis) Data. Humanitarian crisis computing seeks to rapidly identify informative, actionable and credible content in this growing stack of real-time information. The challenge is akin to finding the proverbial needle in the haystack since the vast majority of reports posted on social media is often not relevant for humanitarian response. This is largely a result of the demand versus supply problem described here.

. . . . . . . . .

The smaller the micro-stack, the easier the tasks and the faster that they can be carried out by a greater number of volunteers. For example, instead of having 10 people classify 10,000 tweets based on the Cluster System, microtasking makes it very easy for 1,000 people to classify 10 tweets each. The former would take hours while the latter mere minutes. In response to the recent earthquake in Pakistan, some 100 volunteers used MicroMappers to classify 30,000+ tweets in about 30 hours, for example.

Read full post with utterly brilliant photographs that make all this clear.

2013/10/12

Event: 15 OCT 13 Brussels Falkvinge on Infopolicy

#Events, Crowd-Sourcing, Culture, Governance

Swarmwise Book Discussion In Brussels Next Week

Posted: 11 Oct 2013 05:01 AM PDT

Events: Next Tuesday, the leadership book Swarmwise will be featured in a book launch event in Brussels. Simon Wilson, the director of Edelman Brussels, will moderate a discussion between Joe Paluska and the author, yours truly. The event will be held at The Centre, Rue du Trône 4, 2nd floor, B-1000 Brussels at 12:30 on Tuesday October 15.

Joe Paluska, who is Global Technology Chair of Edelman, will provide his views on the author’s experiences and conclusions on cost-efficient leadership by empowering volunteers in an informal discusson. Paluska has more than 20 years of experience spanning public relations, public policy, journalism, and business affairs.

The event takes place at Edelman’s The Centre over lunch Tuesday. Register at Edelman to book your participation in the event.

(Oh, and there will also be copies of Swarmwise for sale for €10 each – less than half Amazon’s price.)

2013/10/06

Jean Lievens: Jeremy Rifkin on Occupy–the upcoming third industrial revolution

Crowd-Sourcing, Culture, Economics/True Cost, Governance, Innovation, Knowledge, P2P / Panarchy, Resilience

There is something unfair in the way this world is organised. Why is our environment deteriorating? Why is unemployment rising? We want a new vision for the future. The upcoming third industrial revolution needs a new economic paradigm.

S0up3rD0up3r 1 year ago

The economy is crashing because money is no longer relevant. We can produce more food for more people than there is currently living on earth. Every household usually has a lawnmower, a car, a hammer..etc that isn't being used 98% of the time, which means more accessibility to resources if people learned to share.

We don't need money. We need an intelligent way to manage resources.

2013/10/052013/10/05

4th Media: Finding a New Level of Democratic Empowerment in Malaysia: The Village Consultative Committee

Crowd-Sourcing

Finding a New Level of Democratic Empowerment in Malaysia: The Village Consultative Committee

(Editor’s note: A paper presented to the International Forum on Malaysia 50 Years On: Expectation Vs. Reality,1 BORNEO GRAND BALLROOM; Kota Kinabalu, Sabah, Malaysia on 5th October, 2013]

Introduction

Malaysian society has been preoccupied with political discussion since the electoral ’tsunami’ of GE-12 back in March 2008. The result of the last election (GE-13) left many feeling that the system, or distortion of the system, cheated them out of the chance of changing the political landscape of the country. However political aspirations, expectations, and debate has been primarily limited to the formal federal and state political arenas.

The Federal and State legislatures are not the only levels of government in Malaysia. Both the Penang and Selangor State governments have been toying with the idea of direct local government elections. However these initiatives have been blocked by both the federal Government and Election Commission (EC) on various grounds.

There is yet another level within the system government that has been ignored and almost forgotten about within the public domain, although it has been a ’battle front’ in the fight for ’winning voter hearts and minds’ within Pakatan held states since 2008. These are the Village Security and Development Committees (JKKK), which exist in all Malaysian states except Perlis.

A history of village participation

Continue reading “4th Media: Finding a New Level of Democratic Empowerment in Malaysia: The Village Consultative Committee”