Astroturfing

the misleading practice of presenting an orchestrated marketing or public relations campaign under the guise of unsolicited comments from members of the public.

Although the production and dissemination of false news can occur either through negligence or deceit, aiming at some kind of propaganda, the result is always the same: misinformation and manipulation of the final recipient. The boom of the Web and Social Media has added another medium of information and, consequently, a significant field for the dissemination of false news, which, in the digital environment, travels at the speed of light all over the world, potentially reaching up to 2 billion people who are considered to be Internet users worldwide.

The tool “astroturfing” aims at detecting organized actions of misinformation through the modeling of the spread of false news on social media.
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General and specific objectives of the project

Το develop tools

to identify the sources / nodes involved in online propaganda activities and classify them into different categories (false news sources, retransmission nodes, news paraphrasing / distortion nodes, etc.) and to detect organized astroturfing acts
as they are socially formed.

To utilize know-how

The content and tools available to both PALO and Qix and to develop new competitive services that will enrich the existing range of services for products and companies, and upgrade their existing business product on corporate image analysis on social media . Existing products and services have services developed jointly by the two companies under the ICT4GROWTH action while individual tools have been enhanced by other Competitiveness OP actions.

To offer unique technological solutions to problems of global interest

such as fake news and a specialized approach to fake news dissemination strategy through structured networks of influence (as in the case of astroturfing) and is expected to create opportunities to expand nationally and regionally through future partnerships with companies abroad.

Cooperating Organizations

PaloServices is a deep technology company offering marketing and communication analytics services to consumers and brands, using state-of-the-art language technology. The vision of the company is to establish itself as a leader in the field of creating innovative and disruptive IT / internet services with high added value, globally.

The company was founded in 2006 by a shareholder with rich professional experience in the field of consulting companies as well as in the field of information technology. In the private sector the company has two activities: (a) provision of specialized consulting and technical services and (b) IT services and products.

The project was implemented in the framework of the RESEARCH – CREATE – INNOVATE Action and was co-financed by the European Union and national resources through the OP. Competitiveness, Entrepreneurship & Innovation (EPANEK) (project code: T2EDK 3778).