Chris Wiggins, an associate professor of applied mathematics at Columbia University, chief data scientist at The New York Times, and a founding member of the Data Science Institute’s executive committee, collaborated with six researchers to publish An Agenda for Disinformation Research as part of the Computing Research Association’s (CRA) Quadrennial Papers.
The paper describes a multidisciplinary research agenda incorporating disinformation detection, education, measurements of impact, and a new common research infrastructure to combat disinformation and its effects on the U.S. and the world. Wiggins’s Computing Community Consortium collaborators include Nadya Bliss (Arizona State University), Elizabeth Bradley (University of Colorado, Boulder), Joshua Garland (Santa Fe Institute), Filippo Menczer (Indiana University), Scott Ruston (Arizona State University), and Kate Starbird (University of Washington).
Every four years, CRA publishes a series of insights that explore areas and issues around computing research with potential to address national priorities. The papers detail potential research directions, challenges, and recommendations for the computing research community and policymakers.
Themes for 2020 include broad computer science, core computer science, socio-technical computing, diversity and education, and artificial intelligence. From algorithmic mischief and disinformation, to the privacy cost of big data, the selected papers highlight challenges that need to be addressed to move computing research in a more socially-responsible direction.
Visit Computing Research Association’s Quadrennial Papers for a complete list and brief descriptions of recent and upcoming releases.