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Towards Detecting Fake Medical Content on the Web with Machine Learning

  • Conference paper
  • First Online:
7th International Conference on Advancements of Medicine and Health Care through Technology (MEDITECH 2020)

Part of the book series: IFMBE Proceedings ((IFMBE,volume 88))

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Abstract

High speed information dissemination in the online environment is useful, but could also lead to fast spread deceptive content. Among the areas affected by online misinformation is the medical field, hence the need of tools able to help the users filter inaccurate information. This paper is focused on the detection of false medical information distributed online. The proposed model is a sequential neural network with three layers which employs word embeddings. When tested on a dataset concerned with vaccine hesitancy, its accuracy reached 83%. We show that effective detection of potentially deceptive articles on vaccination can be achieved by using this neural network.

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported by the Computer Science Department of the Technical University of Cluj-Napoca, Romania.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Technical University of Cluj-Napoca, Cluj-Napoca, Romania

    Radu Razvan Slavescu & Florina-Ionela Pop

  2. “Iuliu Hațieganu” University of Medicine and Pharmacy, Cluj-Napoca, Romania

    Kinga Cristina Slavescu

Authors
  1. Radu Razvan Slavescu
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  2. Florina-Ionela Pop
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  3. Kinga Cristina Slavescu
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Radu Razvan Slavescu .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Technical University of Cluj-Napoca, Cluj-Napoca, Romania

    Simona Vlad

  2. Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Technical University of Cluj-Napoca, Cluj-Napoca, Romania

    Nicolae Marius Roman

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The authors declare they have no conflict of interest.

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Slavescu, R.R., Pop, FI., Slavescu, K.C. (2022). Towards Detecting Fake Medical Content on the Web with Machine Learning. In: Vlad, S., Roman, N.M. (eds) 7th International Conference on Advancements of Medicine and Health Care through Technology. MEDITECH 2020. IFMBE Proceedings, vol 88. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-93564-1_29

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-93564-1_29

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-030-93563-4

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-030-93564-1

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