1

The European Commission’s

science and knowledge service

Joint Research Centre

EuropCom presentation

Ian Vollbracht

2

A research story

Plus three main messages

3

Social

Media Blogs

WWW

Media

& News

Sources Around 6000 News Sites

Input 250000 articles per day

Languages >70

Categories 1000 classes

Classes Around 2000 categories and

35000 keywords

Runs 24/7

Visitors/day 25000

European Media Monitor

• Automatic language recognition

• Entity extraction

• Quote extraction

• Geotagging

• Tonality

• Duplicate detection

• Categorisation

• Indexing and searching

• Clustering

• Statistics

• Event extraction

December 2016

4

Social

Media Blogs

WWW

Media

& News

Sources Around 6000 News Sites

Input 250000 articles per day

Languages >70

Categories 1000 classes

Classes Around 2000 categories and

35000 keywords

Runs 24/7

Visitors/day 25000

European Media Monitor

• Automatic language recognition

• Entity extraction

• Quote extraction

• Geotagging

• Tonality

• Duplicate detection

• Categorisation

• Indexing and searching

• Clustering

• Statistics

• Event extraction

JRC Research question (Jan 2017)

How prevalent is political

psycho-targeting on social

media at the individual level?

5

Social

Media Blogs

WWW

Media

& News

Sources Around 6000 News Sites

Input 250000 articles per day

Languages >70

Categories 1000 classes

Classes Around 2000 categories and

35000 keywords

Runs 24/7

Visitors/day 25000

European Media Monitor

• Automatic language recognition

• Entity extraction

• Quote extraction

• Geotagging

• Tonality

• Duplicate detection

• Categorisation

• Indexing and searching

• Clustering

• Statistics

• Event extraction

6

Social

Media Blogs

WWW

Media

& News

Sources Around 6000 News Sites

Input 250000 articles per day

Languages >70

Categories 1000 classes

Classes Around 2000 categories and

35000 keywords

Runs 24/7

Visitors/day 25000

European Media Monitor

• Automatic language recognition

• Entity extraction

• Quote extraction

• Geotagging

• Tonality

• Duplicate detection

• Categorisation

• Indexing and searching

• Clustering

• Statistics

• Event extraction

JRC Research conclusion (June 2017)

Not that prevalent (yet) …

But lots of other interesting

things are going on…

7

EU Science Hub lecture (4 July 2017)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f0CPq1YjSHA&t=856s

• What is (psycho-) targeting?

• How to subvert Western democracy (if we fail to regulate some loopholes …)

8

Social

Media Blogs

WWW

Media

& News

Sources Around 6000 News Sites

Input 250000 articles per day

Languages >70

Categories 1000 classes

Classes Around 2000 categories and

35000 keywords

Runs 24/7

Visitors/day 25000

European Media Monitor

• Automatic language recognition

• Entity extraction

• Quote extraction

• Geotagging

• Tonality

• Duplicate detection

• Categorisation

• Indexing and searching

• Clustering

• Statistics

• Event extraction

Same message

for each group

Then re-message

what works !!!

9

Social

Media Blogs

WWW

Media

& News

Sources Around 6000 News Sites

Input 250000 articles per day

Languages >70

Categories 1000 classes

Classes Around 2000 categories and

35000 keywords

Runs 24/7

Visitors/day 25000

European Media Monitor

• Automatic language recognition

• Entity extraction

• Quote extraction

• Geotagging

• Tonality

• Duplicate detection

• Categorisation

• Indexing and searching

• Clustering

• Statistics

• Event extraction

6 October 2017

10

Social

Media Blogs

WWW

Media

& News

Sources Around 6000 News Sites

Input 250000 articles per day

Languages >70

Categories 1000 classes

Classes Around 2000 categories and

35000 keywords

Runs 24/7

Visitors/day 25000

European Media Monitor

• Automatic language recognition

• Entity extraction

• Quote extraction

• Geotagging

• Tonality

• Duplicate detection

• Categorisation

• Indexing and searching

• Clustering

• Statistics

• Event extraction

10 October 2017

11

Social

Media Blogs

WWW

Media

& News

Sources Around 6000 News Sites

Input 250000 articles per day

Languages >70

Categories 1000 classes

Classes Around 2000 categories and

35000 keywords

Runs 24/7

Visitors/day 25000

European Media Monitor

• Automatic language recognition

• Entity extraction

• Quote extraction

• Geotagging

• Tonality

• Duplicate detection

• Categorisation

• Indexing and searching

• Clustering

• Statistics

• Event extraction

19 October 2017

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In the 7 minutes remaining …

We live in audio-visual times

The role of neurology & psychology

Conclusions for policy ideas

13

Social

Media Blogs

WWW

Media

& News

Sources Around 6000 News Sites

Input 250000 articles per day

Languages >70

Categories 1000 classes

Classes Around 2000 categories and

35000 keywords

Runs 24/7

Visitors/day 25000

European Media Monitor

• Automatic language recognition

• Entity extraction

• Quote extraction

• Geotagging

• Tonality

• Duplicate detection

• Categorisation

• Indexing and searching

• Clustering

• Statistics

• Event extraction

14

Social

Media Blogs

WWW

Media

& News

Sources Around 6000 News Sites

Input 250000 articles per day

Languages >70

Categories 1000 classes

Classes Around 2000 categories and

35000 keywords

Runs 24/7

Visitors/day 25000

European Media Monitor

• Automatic language recognition

• Entity extraction

• Quote extraction

• Geotagging

• Tonality

• Duplicate detection

• Categorisation

• Indexing and searching

• Clustering

• Statistics

• Event extraction

Audio - VISUAL

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Social

Media Blogs

WWW

Media

& News

Sources Around 6000 News Sites

Input 250000 articles per day

Languages >70

Categories 1000 classes

Classes Around 2000 categories and

35000 keywords

Runs 24/7

Visitors/day 25000

European Media Monitor

• Automatic language recognition

• Entity extraction

• Quote extraction

• Geotagging

• Tonality

• Duplicate detection

• Categorisation

• Indexing and searching

• Clustering

• Statistics

• Event extraction

Why images?

Stupidity?

Illiteracy?

No, people are overloaded

with information

(we all are)

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Social

Media Blogs

WWW

Media

& News

Sources Around 6000 News Sites

Input 250000 articles per day

Languages >70

Categories 1000 classes

Classes Around 2000 categories and

35000 keywords

Runs 24/7

Visitors/day 25000

European Media Monitor

• Automatic language recognition

• Entity extraction

• Quote extraction

• Geotagging

• Tonality

• Duplicate detection

• Categorisation

• Indexing and searching

• Clustering

• Statistics

• Event extraction

17

Social

Media Blogs

WWW

Media

& News

Sources Around 6000 News Sites

Input 250000 articles per day

Languages >70

Categories 1000 classes

Classes Around 2000 categories and

35000 keywords

Runs 24/7

Visitors/day 25000

European Media Monitor

• Automatic language recognition

• Entity extraction

• Quote extraction

• Geotagging

• Tonality

• Duplicate detection

• Categorisation

• Indexing and searching

• Clustering

• Statistics

• Event extraction

Why does this matter?

All people respond to images

in (often very) emotional ways

18

Social

Media Blogs

WWW

Media

& News

Sources Around 6000 News Sites

Input 250000 articles per day

Languages >70

Categories 1000 classes

Classes Around 2000 categories and

35000 keywords

Runs 24/7

Visitors/day 25000

European Media Monitor

• Automatic language recognition

• Entity extraction

• Quote extraction

• Geotagging

• Tonality

• Duplicate detection

• Categorisation

• Indexing and searching

• Clustering

• Statistics

• Event extraction

19

Social

Media Blogs

WWW

Media

& News

Sources Around 6000 News Sites

Input 250000 articles per day

Languages >70

Categories 1000 classes

Classes Around 2000 categories and

35000 keywords

Runs 24/7

Visitors/day 25000

European Media Monitor

• Automatic language recognition

• Entity extraction

• Quote extraction

• Geotagging

• Tonality

• Duplicate detection

• Categorisation

• Indexing and searching

• Clustering

• Statistics

• Event extraction

20

Serious behavioural scientists worked

for decades on all of this…

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Social

Media Blogs

WWW

Media

& News

Sources Around 6000 News Sites

Input 250000 articles per day

Languages >70

Categories 1000 classes

Classes Around 2000 categories and

35000 keywords

Runs 24/7

Visitors/day 25000

European Media Monitor

• Automatic language recognition

• Entity extraction

• Quote extraction

• Geotagging

• Tonality

• Duplicate detection

• Categorisation

• Indexing and searching

• Clustering

• Statistics

• Event extraction

Facts (and fake facts)

Emotions

Heuristics

Values

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So "fake news" can still be

effective … even when it is

known to be false …

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Social

Media Blogs

WWW

Media

& News

Sources Around 6000 News Sites

Input 250000 articles per day

Languages >70

Categories 1000 classes

Classes Around 2000 categories and

35000 keywords

Runs 24/7

Visitors/day 25000

European Media Monitor

• Automatic language recognition

• Entity extraction

• Quote extraction

• Geotagging

• Tonality

• Duplicate detection

• Categorisation

• Indexing and searching

• Clustering

• Statistics

• Event extraction

24

So we should still solve

problems with this …

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Social

Media Blogs

WWW

Media

& News

Sources Around 6000 News Sites

Input 250000 articles per day

Languages >70

Categories 1000 classes

Classes Around 2000 categories and

35000 keywords

Runs 24/7

Visitors/day 25000

European Media Monitor

• Automatic language recognition

• Entity extraction

• Quote extraction

• Geotagging

• Tonality

• Duplicate detection

• Categorisation

• Indexing and searching

• Clustering

• Statistics

• Event extraction

26

But (rightly or wrongly)

the public will not get the

message if we present the

solutions like this …

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Social

Media Blogs

WWW

Media

& News

Sources Around 6000 News Sites

Input 250000 articles per day

Languages >70

Categories 1000 classes

Classes Around 2000 categories and

35000 keywords

Runs 24/7

Visitors/day 25000

European Media Monitor

• Automatic language recognition

• Entity extraction

• Quote extraction

• Geotagging

• Tonality

• Duplicate detection

• Categorisation

• Indexing and searching

• Clustering

• Statistics

• Event extraction

28

Or, worse …

29

Social

Media Blogs

WWW

Media

& News

Sources Around 6000 News Sites

Input 250000 articles per day

Languages >70

Categories 1000 classes

Classes Around 2000 categories and

35000 keywords

Runs 24/7

Visitors/day 25000

European Media Monitor

• Automatic language recognition

• Entity extraction

• Quote extraction

• Geotagging

• Tonality

• Duplicate detection

• Categorisation

• Indexing and searching

• Clustering

• Statistics

• Event extraction

bad

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… Social media means we

need to think like this …

31

Social

Media Blogs

WWW

Media

& News

Sources Around 6000 News Sites

Input 250000 articles per day

Languages >70

Categories 1000 classes

Classes Around 2000 categories and

35000 keywords

Runs 24/7

Visitors/day 25000

European Media Monitor

• Automatic language recognition

• Entity extraction

• Quote extraction

• Geotagging

• Tonality

• Duplicate detection

• Categorisation

• Indexing and searching

• Clustering

• Statistics

• Event extraction

32

… Due to solid scientific

research in neurology and

cognitive psychology …

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Social

Media Blogs

WWW

Media

& News

Sources Around 6000 News Sites

Input 250000 articles per day

Languages >70

Categories 1000 classes

Classes Around 2000 categories and

35000 keywords

Runs 24/7

Visitors/day 25000

European Media Monitor

• Automatic language recognition

• Entity extraction

• Quote extraction

• Geotagging

• Tonality

• Duplicate detection

• Categorisation

• Indexing and searching

• Clustering

• Statistics

• Event extraction