Journalism, Misinformation and Fact Checking Chairs' Welcome & Organization

It is our pleasure to welcome you to the WWW 2018 Journalism, Misinformation and Fact Checking Alternate Track. Although the problem of misinformation and deceptive information is as old as Web itself, the topic has gained a lot of attention recently. Phenomena, such as misinformation propagation, fabricated news reports (also known as "fake news",) computational propaganda, astroturf, and ideological polarization have become more common on the Web and the social Web, calling for a cross-cutting approach to better understand the topic. One approach that has gained some traction is that of the establishment of fact-checking organizations. This track solicited contributions that explore the range of computational, social, cognitive, economic, and communication topics related to the above phenomena. We received submissions covering a broad range of topics, including computational approaches for detecting misinformation and propaganda on the Web and social media, as well as proposals to improve fact checking, critical thinking, information and media literacy, crowdsourcing, and societal decision-making processes.