Misinformation in Social Media: A Challenge for Emergency Management Sergio Luna - I&E Fellow School of Systems and Enterprises Social media applications are interactive platforms where users exchange text, images, voice, video, etc. More than 75% of the United States adult population have access to social media applications. Contact Information Sergio Luna email: [email protected] This material is based upon work supported by the Innovation & Entrepreneurship Doctoral Fellowship through the Office of Innovation and Entrepreneurship at Stevens Institute of Technology. Thus, if social media applications offer many potential benefits, Why have they not been fully implemented by authorities? Implications in Emergency Management Benefits • Rapid dissemination of emergency alerts. • Support development of more accurate scenario- estimation for responders. • Continue operating even when other communication methods have failed or are saturated. • Support participants planning, response and coordination of activities. Challenges The problem to be addressed Introduction • Dissemination of misinformation in social media during emergency situations. • Rumors, false information, true but outdated, etc. • Misinformation is used to take decisions. • User’s actions result in counterproductive consequences. • Responders misallocate resources. Publications • An interactive visualization approach • Supports emergency managers to anticipate scenarios • Simulate user’s response to social media misinformation and their effect on the infrastructure • Visualize potential policies and their effect on emergency response processes and on the user’s actions The Proposed Solution What is novel? • Proposed approach developed under Systems Engineering principles • Incorporate interdisciplinary concepts from soft and hard sciences • Merge social and technical challenges • Identification of critical points for social media for emergency management Commercial Applications/Future Direction • Decision Support Tool for Event Identification • Scenario Evaluation • Tool dedicated to Emergency Manager’s Needs • Finalize proof-of-concept • Testing, Verification and Validation Stevens Innovation Expo May 3, 2017 I&E Doctoral Fellowship Program 78% 22% Social Media Presence in U.S. Adult Population Social Media Presence No Presence Luna, S. and Pennock, M. "Social media in emergency management advances, challenges and future directions," 9th Annual IEEE International Systems Conference (SysCon) no. IEEE, Vancouver, Canada, pp. 792-797, 2015. Luna, S., Lopes, A., See Tao, H., Zapata, F., and Pineda R., “Integration, Verification, Validation, Test, and Evaluation (IVVT&E) Framework for System of Systems (SoS)”, Complex Adaptive Systems CAS’2013 Baltimore, MD November 13-15, 2013