Federal government gives researchers $750k of taxpayers' cash to develop tool which will scold and nag journalists that their stories may cause people to argue or help spread 'misinformation'

• The National Science Foundation issued the grant to Temple University as part of their Trust & Authenticity in Communication Systems initiative
• Researchers say they are trying to develop a tool to prevent the 'triggering of uncivil, polarizing discourse' and the 'production of misinformation' 
• They plan to process natural language into an algorithm, and combine this with data on how social media is used to devise the new tool 
• The project has sparked further concern after saying journalists will be warned if their stories could be twisted online to spread misinformation 
• The research team says they want 'journalists to be part of the process, not just the mere users of the product itself'
• The NSF has invested a total of $9million into the initiative in hopes of confronting online misinformation

A federal government agency is spending $750,000 of taxpayers' cash to develop tools which will scold journalists that their stories may trigger arguments among readers.   

The project, titled America's Fourth Estate at Risk: A System for Mapping the (Local) Journalism Life Cycle to Rebuild the Nation's News Trust, is part of the National Science Foundation's (NSF) Trust & Authenticity in Communication Systems initiative.

Federal government cash has been given to Temple University in Philadelphia, with researchers now working on a tool to prevent 'the triggering of uncivil, polarizing discourse, audience misinterpretation, the production of misinformation, and the perpetuation of false narratives.'

Researchers there say they'll process natural language into an algorithm, and combine this with data on how social media is used to devise the new tool.

But they have yet to give examples of material which could 'trigger uncivil, polarizing discourse', and explain further how the tool will tell the difference between a healthy debate online, and exchanges which spill over into anger.  

And the project has sparked further concern after saying journalists will be warned if their stories could be twisted online to spread misinformation, even though there's no suggestion that the work they've produced is inaccurate. 

Further information on examples of stories that could trigger such a warning have yet to be shared.  

'So, you can imagine sort of an analytics tool that informs the journalists and editors and other people involved in this business how their products or how their creative act is used or misused in social media,' Temple University professor Eduard Dragut, who is familiar with the project, told Campus Reform.

'We want journalists to be part of the process, not just the mere users of the product itself.'

The NSF, in a press release, claimed the 'overarching track goal' of the initiative is to 'address the urgent need for tools and techniques to help the nation effectively prevent, mitigate and adapt to critical threats to communication systems'.

The organization argued that modern life and economic growth are 'dependent' on access to 'trustworthy and accurate information' and the communication systems can be 'manipulated or have unanticipated negative effects.' 

The NSF researchers also hope to help journalists better understand and measure the long-term communication impact of their content, not just the initial reactions such as views, likes or shares.

But it is unclear why the NSF expects journalists' to invest their time in analyzing reactions to their work. The NSF has also yet to explain how the new tools will avoid penalizing journalists who cover tough and divisive topics, which often trigger fury in social media bubbles, but are met with a far more muted or open-minded response in the real world. 

'You can imagine that each news article is usually, or actually almost all the time, accompanied by user comments and reactions on Twitter,' Dragut explained.

'One goal of the project is to retrieve those and then use natural language processing tools or algorithms to mine and recommend to some users [that] this space of talking, this set of tweets, which may lead to a set of people, like a sub-community, where this article is used for wrong reasons.'

Temple University Professor R. Lance Holbert, who is also involved with the team, said researchers are currently focusing their efforts on misinformation in local media.

'Certainly some topics over time will become more versus less interesting, but also we're focused here initially on local media as well, so each locality may have different topics or particular points of interest that come up in the news,' he said. 'We're trying to keep this generalizable across topics.'

The project - which is a collaborative effort utilizing researchers from Temple, University of Illinois Chicago and Boston University - will also involve partnerships with organizations in academia, the government, nonprofit sector and the journalism industry.

Dragut stressed that the project could only succeed with partnerships from media businesses - but none have yet made definitive moves to sign up to the project.  

'We have some preliminary conversation with Bloomberg, for instance, and we will have to define exactly how they are going to help us. Google has an initiative to help local news, and we are working to create a relationship with them, and there are others,' said Dragut. 

He claims the research team is trying to create a collaborative environment with social media platforms and other tech giants, such as Google. 

'This product will not work unless we are successful in bringing some of these high tech companies into the game,' he said. 

The NSF has invested a total of $9million into the initiative in hopes of confronting online misinformation. 

US Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy issued his support for the undertaking, saying: 'This is an important step to root out false sources of information, rebuild the trust we have in our communications systems, and assist those targeted by misinformation.' 

The NSF has ten teams under its Trust & Authenticity in Communications research umbrella, including the aforementioned project.

The three or four most successful teams will move on the phase two of the initiative, which means the NSF will offer those projects more funding.   

At this time, it remains unclear which projects will move on to the next phase.