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Kate Starbird & Research on Fake News - BostonCard - 03-31-2017

http://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/politics/uw-professor-the-information-war-is-real-and-were-losing-it/

Starbird, you may recall, majored in Computer Science while at Stanford (another exceptional student and exceptional athlete).  She's now a Professor in the Department of Human Centered Design and Engineering at UW (OK, not everyone is perfect), and she is studying social networks of conspiracy theories.  Here's her blog on the issue:

https://medium.com/hci-design-at-uw/information-wars-a-window-into-the-alternative-media-ecosystem-a1347f32fd8f#.arvcj4d35

Good for her!

Kate Starbird & Research on Fake News - North Woods - 04-09-2017

She was interviewed on NPR this morning about her research at UW on fake news. I didn't find a link to that interview, but it largely mirrors content in this recent Seattle Times article which then got picked up by other news sources.

In any case, it's always nice to see a Stanford great athlete distinguishing themselves in another field.

Re: Kate Starbird & Research on Fake News - washingtonismoney - 04-09-2017

It's interesting research. In a way, however, her research reveals a bit of the weaknesses of a purely quantitative approach to assess what work is affecting the culture. Hits, as anyone in media will tell you... (off the record, and a bit inebriated) .... aren't real. Search any article on twitter and you'll see a number of obviously fake bots tweeting it. Does this matter? It doesn't matter as much as a real person, certainly. But does it matter zero? I can't say for sure. As the academic papers are fond of concluding, more research needed. 

Re: Kate Starbird & Research on Fake News - Stymie - 04-09-2017

Interesting speculations but no real facts.

Re: Kate Starbird & Research on Fake News - Snorlax94 - 04-09-2017

Hey North Woods,
Thanks for sharing this article! I am always thrilled to see former Stanford student athletes succeed off the court. It draws such a contrast to so many other athletic programs where I think people have to honestly question what kind of education the student-athletes are receiving. It's thrilling to refer to Kate Starbird as "Professor Starbird."

As for the research itself, I know quite a bit about website analytics, and that part of the research sounds reasonable to me. I think someone had the erroneous impression that her data used "hits," but I didn't see that specific term mentioned anywhere.

Is there a list anywhere of former Stanford student-athletes who have gone on to make contributions in other fields?



Re: Kate Starbird & Research on Fake News - BostonCard - 04-10-2017

I linked a blog post she made on the issue here:

http://thecardboard.org/board/index.php?topic=16744.msg190969#msg190969

BC

Re: Kate Starbird & Research on Fake News - admin - 04-10-2017

Apologies, I didn't see your earlier post, BC.

Re: Kate Starbird & Research on Fake News - ThePassionOfTheChryst - 04-10-2017

Godspeed, Professor Starbird. Having dealt with more conspiracy theorists than I'd like to, I know that engaging them directly is a fruitless endeavor.

To tie my reply back into Stanford sports: Surely I'm not the only one who's seen the gentleman standing on the corner of El Camino and Galvez after home football games, holding a sign advertising some 9/11 "truth" website. Does anyone know how many years he's been doing that? Seems like it's been at least 3-4 now.

Re: Kate Starbird & Research on Fake News - Stymie - 04-10-2017

I personally do not think that anybody (including Prof. Starbird) can define the difference between a "fact" and a "non-fact."  I took a course at Stanford from one of the most eminent linguistic philosophers of his time (Donald Davidson), and we spent the whole three months debating whether or not the statement (from Socrates) that "Man is a rational animal" is true if and only if man IS a rational animal.

Hardest course (by far) that I took at LSJU, with the smartest people I knew, and we never came to a conclusion.

Re: Kate Starbird & Research on Fake News - CompSci87 - 04-11-2017

(04-10-2017, 02:35 PM)ThePOC link Wrote:Godspeed, Professor Starbird. Having dealt with more conspiracy theorists than I'd like to, I know that engaging them directly is a fruitless endeavor.

To tie my reply back into Stanford sports: Surely I'm not the only one who's seen the gentleman standing on the corner of El Camino and Galvez after home football games, holding a sign advertising some 9/11 "truth" website. Does anyone know how many years he's been doing that? Seems like it's been at least 3-4 now.

It's been quite a while, but I don't remember how long.

Re: Kate Starbird & Research on Fake News - Stymie - 04-11-2017

Why is "Computer Science" not called "Computer Engineering"?

Re: Kate Starbird & Research on Fake News - 81alum - 04-11-2017

(04-11-2017, 02:23 AM)Stymie link Wrote:Why is "Computer Science" not called "Computer Engineering"?
I have no idea how Stanford organizes or labels these disciplines. 

At my school we have both disciplines and they are distinct.  "Computer engineering" is more heavily focused on applied coding, is offered by the College of Engineering (obviously), and its graduates tend to go straight to work in industry.  "Computer science" is offered by the College of Science, is more mathematical and theoretical, and its graduates tend to go on for more advanced degrees.  But, as I said, that may have nothing to do with the common understanding at Stanford.

Re: Kate Starbird & Research on Fake News - M T - 04-11-2017

(04-11-2017, 02:23 AM)Stymie link Wrote:Why is "Computer Science" not called "Computer Engineering"?

Depends upon your definition of science.  If you define science as studying strictly the "natural world", obviously that doesn't apply to the part of CS that studies algorithms and such.  In some sense, it is more like mathematics, in that CS deals with theories of how man-made systems (similar to sets of axioms) work.  But, like science, not everything is purely proofs of theories; some areas deal with theories and accompanying experimentation to test those theories.  Certainly when you get into more complex systems (think of the Internet as a system), there will be features of that system that are beyond being provable (I offer that opinion without proof). 

Like the scientists at SLAC, most computer scientists have to be pretty adept at what one might call computer engineering to build systems in which to test their ideas.  Some of the most prominent computer scientists are strictly theoreticians and don't build systems at all themselves.


Re: Kate Starbird & Research on Fake News - CornFed - 04-11-2017

"(I offer that opinion without proof)"

Or, as every professor I had used to say when she didn't want to go through the tedious detail, "The conclusion is intuitively obvious to even the most casual observer.  The proof is left to the student."

:P

Re: Kate Starbird & Research on Fake News - fullmetal - 04-11-2017

"Left as an exercise for the reader" is my favorite :)