Statistical Methods for Conducting the Ontology and Classifications of Fake News on Social Media

Abstract

Fake news and its impacts are serious threats to social media in recent time. Studies on the ontology of these problems reveal that serious cybercrimes such as character assassination, misinformation, and blackmailing that some people intentionally perpetrate through social networks significantly correlate with fake news. Consequently, some classical studies on social anthropology have profiled the problems and motives of perpetrators of fake news on political, rivalry, and religious issues in contemporary society. However, this classification is restrictive and statistically defective in dealing with cyber security, forensic problems, and investigation of social dynamics on social media. This chapter exhaustively discusses the above issues and identifies solutions to challenges confronting research community in the above domain. Thematic analysis of responses of certain respondents reveal three new classifications of fake news that people propagate on social media on the basis of mode of propagation, motives of perpetrators, and impacts on victims.