The spread of misinformation is on the rise and is termed fake news. Studies have shown that fake news spreads at a faster rate online than genuine information. And, people do not verify if the information they receive is accurate or fake before sharing it with others on social media.
As the menace of fake news is on the rise, the internet giants such as Facebook, Google and Twitter are devising new techniques to combat the same. In a recent move, Twitter has acquired Fabula AI, which is a London-based working on a tech that can detect fake news. The terms of the deal have not been disclosed as yet.
Why this acquisition?
Similar to the other social media platforms, Twitter has been facing criticism for the spread of misinformation. With the latest acquisition, the company can combat the same and promote healthy conversations on its platform. Over time, it will help the various forms of platform abuse.
Heads up about Fabula!
Founded in 2018 by Damon Mannion, Ernesto Schmitt, Federico Monti and Michael Bronstein, Fabula deploys Machine Learning to detect misinformation and prevents the spread of the same online. The company has come up with a patented AI system called geometric deep learning. It uses algorithms that effectively learn from complex and large data sets gathered from social networks.
“As this technology detects the spread pattern, it is language and locale independent; in fact, it can be used even when the content is encrypted,” states the company’s post. “We also believe that such an approach, given it is based on the propagation pattern through huge social networks, is far more resilient to adversarial attacks.”
Joins research team at Twitter
More than an acquisition, this is an acqui-hire for Fabula. As a result of the acquisition, the company will become a part of the research group of Twitter – Cortex unit, which is led by Sandeep Pandey. This group will towards devising new ways to use machine learning across reinforcement learning, recommendations systems, graph deep learning and natural language processing (NLP). Also, the team will address the Machine Learning ethics.
Also, Michael Bronstein, the chief scientist and co-founder of the company will lead the graph deep learning at Twitter. And, he will retain the position as Imperial College’s chair of machine learning and pattern recognition.
Past acquisitions by Twitter!
While Fabula has been acquired to control the spread of misinformation, Twitter has made a few other machine learning acquisitions in the past. The social media giant acquired Madbits, a visual intelligence startup in 2014 followed by Whetlab and Magic Pony in the next few years. However, Fabula is a notable acquisition for Twitter as its tech is focused on combating the spread of fake news online, which is the need of the hour.
Stay tuned to Silicon Canals for more updates in the tech startup world.
Also read,
https://siliconcanals.com/news/startups/apply-for-social-impact-lab-2019-with-your-startup-or-scaleup-and-complete-your-social-mission/
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