Who is Aunt Meiyu? Taiwanese youth found a new way to challenge fake news in pirvate chat group.
A chatbot that detects fake news.
Editor note: In 2018 december, A Taiwanese developer Carol created a chatbot called Aunt Meiyu on popular messaging app LINE. Aunt Meiyu is designed to combat disinformation circulated in private chat group, especially family chat group that includes senior family members, who in general tend to share unclarified news or even disinformation. Carol herself is also the victim of “disinformation in family chat group”; that is why she decides to develop this chatbot.
Aunt Meiyu is a chatbot on LINE that will detect all texts/links sent to it or in private group. Aunt Meiyu will query and compare texts/links with the databases and return response if the textual information are found false.
g0v.news talks to her about this chatbot, disinformation and Taiwan.
Hi Carol
Q (g0v.news) : Could you talk about yourself first, what do you do and is “Aunt Meiyu” your first public project?
A (Carol) : I am a rails developer, using Ruby on Rails everyday. I’m not sure this is my first project but it’s certainly the first one that receives so much attention. I always keep updated with g0v community.
Q: You said your motivation for creating Aunt Meiyu is witnessing so much disinformation in LINE groups. How do you transform that motivation into action, what makes you to create a chatbot on LINE platform to fight fake news ?
A: Well it’s quite intuitive. I did some fact-checking of those messages sent from my elder relatives and look at why these information is false. However, I found that the chatbot cofacts that deals with internet hoaxes does not fit my needs. I don’t use LINE that often, still, I want to send the fact-checking result to my elder relatives. cofacts chatbot cannot be added to private groups; you have to send the message to the chatbot directly. There is sound reasons why cofacts chatbot cannot be added into private groups, so I create another chatbot for my needs. This is how Aunt Meiyu created.
Q: Why do you chose the name ”Aunt Meiyu” and how do you come up this name?
A: Well…I think the name just pop up in my head. I was hoping that this chatbot could be generous and heartwarming. An Aunt gives people that kind of impression. And she is a female !
Q: How long did you take to create this chatbot? What is the biggest challenge so far ?
A: It takes about three to four hours. I started right after my baby slept. At the beginning I thought this chatbot was only a little toy for myself and friends. After one day I heard that so many people added Aunt Meiyu on LINE that the memory allowance of the server soon became full. I had to ask for help from my friend. I think the biggest challenge so far is the appropriation of the reply. Also, the system cannot verify picture and video yet.
Q: Let’s talk about the functions of Aunt Meiyu. How many databases does Aunt Meiyu link to ?
A: Only cofacts. Because I didn’t have much time at the beginning. I may add linkage to more databases in the future.
Q: How is the usage now? how many users and data flow? Can we know how many private groups Aunt Meiyu was added into?
A: We cannot know the number of groups because I don’t record any data. However the number can be calculated because I can know how many different group ID are there. So far (editor note: by 4th of January, 2019), I can tell some figures: About 64,699 people add or added Aunt Meiyu on LINE. By the same time 3,417 people block it. Aunt Meiyu replied to about 710 thousands rumors. The busiest time is between 11:00 to 23:00. The average requests per second (RPS) is 7.
Q: Did you expect such popularity ?
A: No, not at all, otherwise I would never do it right before I went for vacation. I actually created this chatbot for fun. My friend asked me to make my facebook post about Aunt Meiyu public and the next day the number of users skyrocketed.
Q: What is the most popular fake news right now ?
A: I think this question is better answered by cofacts. They put some resources on github.
Q: What is your future plan for Aunt Meiyu?
A: Mainly natural language processing. Many controversial statement or news are not responded by Aunt Meiyu. However, I don’t think I can reply this kind of rumors with confidence.
Q: Do you have any plan for Aunt Meiyu to be operated on other messaging platform?
A: As matter of fact, I seperate LINE bot and query cofacts and create a ruby SDK (rumors-api-client) , which means that any developers can use this SDK to develop an application. At the moment, LINE is the largest messaging platform that witness most rumors in Taiwan, across all different age groups. I don’t think it would be effective to to make Aunt Meiyu available on other platforms.
Q: Last but not least, there is a rumor about Aunt Meiyu right now. Some elders worry that Aunt Meiyu collect personal data secretly. Some said that the current ruling party is behind Aunt Meiyu, aiming to monitor private chat group and would arrest those who spread fake news. Would you like to refute this rumor in person?
A: Haha. First, I am just a developer who lives overseas and does not join any political party. Second, Aunt Meiyu is open sourced, anyone can read the original code and perhaps to help. Third, if you have worry, don’t use it. You can even to build one for yourself by using my code. Aunt Meiyu has a small goal, which is helping people clarify the rumors fast and accurate. Finally, You can remove or block Aunt Meiyu anytime you like.
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