Social media users are overwhelmed with the excess of information available online, and therefore often fall victim to misinformation; consequently sharing the same information, and inevitably creating a cycle.

To combat this, users have a need to be better informed about the information they consume through unobtrusive and consistent means. Information needs to be visually convincing in order to follow it.

Introducing Trucan: A fact-checking application for social media that searches for and analyzes legitimate sources of information for safe accreditation. Spread the truth with Trucan.

Trucan is a mobile application with four main functions: Source Analyzer, Claim Maker, TruType, and Source Comparison. Source Analyzer allows the user to verify information from a source via input of a URL. The Source Analyzer receives key points detailing the article’s summary with the ability to provide accreditation for the source. The user may confirm its accuracy through the data that has been reviewed and displayed based on Trucan’s AI source analysis.

Claim Maker enables the user to write a supporting stance that is backed by related sources of information recommended by Trucan’s AI. Sources can be easily found and summarized with Trucan’s credibility report. The supporting sources are cited within the claim and can be shared with text-based social media platforms, such as Twitter. Writing performance is also analyzed to ascertain the claim’s language clarity and delivery.

Similar to Claim Maker, TruType offers articles related to what the user types, as well as a writing performance to enable confidence before sharing a post or comment; directly through the keyboard. If users wish to compare two sources, Trucan can analyze and present a comparison grade through AI. Users can then look at all the supporting information the AI used to come to a conclusion. The comparison can come from two sources the user inputs; or recommend a source to compare with if the user only presents one source.

The artificial intelligence works through a series of methods. For credibility, the AI uses rhetorical structure analysis to find bias. It also compares key words with other existing articles to find relevance. AI also has the ability to use linguistic analysis in order to assist users composing a claim. Moreover, the AI does not replace critical thinking for the user, but rather enables confidence and decision making by filtering and increasing useful and relevant information.