Combating Fake News on Social Media: A Framework, Review, and Future Opportunities

Social media platforms facilitate the sharing of a vast magnitude of information in split seconds among users. However, some false information, generally referred to as “fake news”, is also widely spread. This can have major negative impacts on individuals and societies. Unfortunately, people are often not able to correctly identify fake news from authentic news. Therefore, there is an urgent need to find effective mechanisms to fight fake news on social media. To this end, this paper adapts the Straub Model of Security Action Cycle to the context of combating fake news on social media. It uses the adapted framework to classify the vast literature on fake news into action cycle phases (i.e., deterrence, prevention, detection, and mitigation/remedy). Based on a systematic and inter-disciplinary review of the relevant literature, we analyze the status and the challenges in each stage of combating fake news, followed by introducing future research directions. These efforts allow the development of a holistic view of the research frontier on fighting fake news online. We conclude that this is a multidisciplinary issue, and as such, a collaborative effort from different fields is needed to effectively address this problem.