An ontological analysis of misinformation in online social networks

Abstract: The internet, Online Social Networks (OSNs) and smart phones enable users to create tremendous amount of information. Users who search for general or specific knowledge may not have these days problems of information scarce but misinformation. Misinformation nowadays can refer to a continuous spectrum between what can be seen as "facts" or "truth", if humans agree on the existence of such, to false information that everyone agree that it is false. In this paper, we will look at this spectrum of information/misinformation and compare between some of the major relevant concepts. While few fact-checking websites exist to evaluate news articles or some of the popular claims people exchange, nonetheless this can be seen as a little effort in the mission to tag online information with their "proper" category or label.