No Rumour Health

Avoiding and counteracting misleading health information is one of the main concerns of the scientific and medical community. However, debunking misinformation is more challenging than it seems. Whether a user takes science and health information as true or not depends more on psychological reasons than on scientific literacy, therefore, once a statement is set as true, it is difficult to debunk it. Moreover, there is evidence that when accurate information is presented along with an opposite framework, the presence of misinformation causes people to stop believing in facts altogether.

The aim of this project is to offer users a tool to access verified information about the hoaxes circulating social networks to avoid their consolidation. For this, a user-friendly application will be developed for the target of the project: population over 65 who have accessed the Internet late in their life. A recent study demonstrates that this is the population group that shares more articles from fake news domains.