About the Project

At a time when disinformation and “fake news” are spreading rapidly and are becoming increasingly difficult to detect, the media are increasingly reliant on technological support in the game of cat and mouse in the fight against disinformation. With advancing technology, especially in the field of artificial intelligence, manipulated content such as deepfakes is becoming more and more realistic and can hardly be identified without specialized tools. This poses a serious threat to the integrity of information and the credibility of the media.

This is where news-polygraph comes in:

Verification process

Our project aims to develop a comprehensive, multimodal and interoperable technology platform to support verification processes.

Analysis tools

In collaboration with the user partners, the research and business partners are developing analysis tools for text, audio, image and video data.

Crowd support

The combination of these analysis methods with crowd support and extended services creates a unique toolset for detecting and combating disinformation.

news-polygraph places particular emphasis on the consideration of all relevant modalities as well as on the support of multimodal approaches, which have so far been insufficiently addressed in research. The platform is designed to enable holistic detection of disinformation, including shallowfakes, deepfakes, manipulation and fabrication. Another focus is on addressing aspects of trust such as explainability, transparency, data protection and bias.

The news-polygraph research alliance was selected for funding by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) as part of the “RUBIN – Regional Entrepreneurial Alliances for Innovation” funding program. A total of nine partners from Berlin, Brandenburg and Thuringia, including institutions from science, media, technology and business, will work together on research and development over the three-year project period.

News-polygraph entered the implementation phase in May 2023.

Q & A

What is the main goal of news-polygraph?

news-polygraph is developing a comprehensive technology platform for analyzing and detecting disinformation that combines multimodal analysis methods and crowd support to support verification processes.

Which partners are involved in news-polygraph?

news-polygraph is an alliance of 9 partners from Berlin, Brandenburg and Thuringia, including institutions from science, media, technology and business. You can find out more about the various partners here.

What types of disinformation does news-polygraph address?

news-polygraph addresses decontextualization (authentic material in misleading context), manipulation (alteration of existing material) and fabrication (invention/creation of material), including shallowfakes and deepfakes.

How does news-polygraph improve verification processes?

By integrating analysis techniques for different modalities and incorporating crowd support, news-polygraph aims to enable accelerated, simplified and reproducible verification processes that can respond more effectively to the diversity of disinformation types.

Why is multimodality important for disinformation detection?

Disinformation occurs in many forms and contexts. Multimodal analysis makes it possible to detect inconsistencies and fakes across different media, which significantly increases the effectiveness of detection.

How does news-polygraph address trust aspects such as explainability and transparency?

news-polygraph attaches great importance to explainability, transparency, data protection and the reduction of bias in order to strengthen users’ trust in the platform and its results.

How does news-polygraph differ from previous approaches?

In contrast to previous projects, which often only focus on individual modalities, news-polygraph concentrates on the integration of different analysis methods in one platform and takes into account the integration of users and additional services in order to offer a holistic solution.