MisinformationinSocialMedia:AChallengeforEmergencyManagement

SergioLuna- I&EFellowSchoolofSystemsandEnterprises

Social media applications are interactive platforms whereusers exchange text, images, voice, video, etc.

More than 75% of the United States adult population haveaccess to social media applications.

ContactInformationSergioLunaemail:sluna@stevens.edu

This material is based upon work supported by the Innovation &Entrepreneurship Doctoral Fellowship through the Office of Innovationand Entrepreneurship at Stevens Institute of Technology.

Thus,ifsocialmediaapplicationsoffermanypotentialbenefits,Whyhavethey notbeenfullyimplementedbyauthorities?

ImplicationsinEmergencyManagementBenefits

• Rapid dissemination of emergency alerts.• Support development of more accurate scenario-

estimation for responders.• Continue operating even when other communication

methods have failed or are saturated.• Support participants planning, response and

coordination of activities.

Challenges

Theproblemtobeaddressed

Introduction

• Dissemination of misinformation in social media duringemergency situations.

• Rumors, false information, true but outdated, etc.• Misinformation is used to take decisions.• User’s actions result in counterproductive consequences.• Responders misallocate resources.

Publications

• An interactive visualization approach• Supports emergency managers to anticipate scenarios• Simulate user’s response to social media misinformation

and their effect on the infrastructure• Visualize potential policies and their effect on emergency

response processes and on the user’s actions

TheProposedSolution

Whatisnovel?• Proposed approach developed under Systems Engineering

principles• Incorporate interdisciplinary concepts from soft and hard

sciences• Merge social and technical challenges• Identification of critical points for social media for

emergency management

CommercialApplications/FutureDirection• Decision Support Tool for Event Identification• Scenario Evaluation• Tool dedicated to Emergency Manager’s Needs• Finalize proof-of-concept• Testing, Verification and Validation

Stevens Innovation ExpoMay 3, 2017

I&E Doctoral Fellowship Program

78%

22%

SocialMediaPresenceinU.S.AdultPopulation

SocialMediaPresenceNoPresence

Luna, S. and Pennock, M. "Social media in emergency management advances, challenges andfuture directions," 9th Annual IEEE International Systems Conference (SysCon) no. IEEE,Vancouver, Canada, pp. 792-797, 2015.

Luna, S., Lopes, A., See Tao, H., Zapata, F., and Pineda R., “Integration, Verification, Validation,Test, and Evaluation (IVVT&E) Framework for System of Systems (SoS)”, Complex AdaptiveSystems CAS’2013 Baltimore, MD November 13-15, 2013