ANSA approached EY with the objective of creating an innovative solution to support tracking of the origin of their stories, and for that story to be traced through its entire history of updates and reposts on third-party news websites.
EY teams proposed using blockchain, which is typically used to prevent tampering in financial transactions and to track assets. With a deep understanding of the applications and technology, the team wondered, “Why couldn’t blockchain apply to news stories too?”
To put this to the test, EY teams built a proof-of-concept using the EY OpsChain Traceability solution. When an editor publishes a news story it’s fed into the system automatically, with its ID and publication details in a block that is made immutable through notarization on blockchain. (ANSA can also push a modification event in case of any changes or corrections that need to be made post-publication.) When a story is published online, it is given an “ANSACheck” sticker and readers can click on this to see who has written it and potentially republished it.
EY teams and ANSA also created an opportunity to publicize the blockchain solution as part of a live neuroscience experiment at wavespace™ in Rome. EY teams connected different stakeholders – from policymakers to academic institutions – to discuss the social and economic impact of fake news and to test their perception of news stories. ANSA used an Implicit Association Test (IAT) and eye tracking to monitor the emotional reactions of 50 volunteers to five real and five fake news stories, and revealed which stories had provoked the greatest reactions.
From this, EY teams provided ANSA with a report outlining the test’s results and detailing what type of content, images and story length best engages an audience and drives sharing – techniques which distributors of fake news are highly skilled at deploying.
EY teams and ANSA also developed examples of leading practice writing and page-build approaches for various subject areas, which can be shared with ecosystem partners to increase the quality of their news, furthering the reach and raising the profile of bona fide stories.