Entitled “Semantic Forensics (SemaFor),” the aim of this project was to “develop technologies to automatically detect, attribute, and characterize falsified, multi-modal media assets to defend against largescale automated disinformation attacks.”

“Our team’s main goal is to build tools to defend against large-scale, online, automated disinformation attacks that aim to intentionally spread false information,” said Martin Graciarena, SRI’s principal investigator on the SemaFor project and senior manager of computer science at SRI’s Speech Technology and Research (STAR) Lab. “We are developing technologies that automatically detect, attribute, and characterize falsified multimedia stories circulating online to defend against large-scale disinformation attacks.”

“When someone wants to plant a falsified news story, the tools to create them are very good, but it’s still challenging to get every nuance of the language, attribution, imagery, video, and audio just right,” Graciarena says. “Our system can look at all these aspects in total to discern when something is ever-so-slightly amiss. When taken as a whole, these clues can tell us when a news story has been manipulated.”