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Fake News Busters
The Open Mind team (left to right): Stefan Uddenberg, Jeff An, Michael Lopez-Brau, Alex Cui
Identifying fake news isn’t always easy, but a team of college students from Yale University, the California Institute of Technology, and other schools is trying to change that. They recently developed Open Mind, a new extension for the Chrome browser that displays a warning when users encounter fake or biased news. The software uses an algorithm to pick out key words and phrases, and if it identifies an article that’s politically slanted to the left or right, it suggests other stories on the same topic with alternate viewpoints. The program grew out of a December “hackathon” competition at Yale, which challenged students to find ways to counter the explosive growth of fake news. One of the goals of Open Mind, according to one of its creators, is to drive home the idea that other viewpoints exist outside our comfort zones. “Open Mind will help young people who are just developing their political opinions,” says Alex Cui, a sophomore at Cal Tech. “It exposes them to different points of view and lets them make up their own minds.”