KonCheck

Using AI to contextualise political information
Digital information is often shared without references to sources or sufficient context. This can make it difficult for users to assess the origin, credibility and significance of content. At the same time, the digital information landscape facilitates the spread of false, manipulated or distorted information as well as artificially generated content. This can influence political opinion formation and make constructive public discourse more difficult.

This is where the KonCheck research project comes in. As part of the project, an innovative software tool is being developed and tested that uses artificial intelligence methods to contextualise politically relevant information and assess its authenticity and trustworthiness.

Designed as a user-friendly application, KonCheck aims to provide various ways of helping users better understand and assess information. For example, users will be able to ask questions about specific texts, view relevant sources, access articles in plain language or obtain additional contextual information. The technology will include AI-based language models.

KonCheck aims not only to make it easier for people to engage with political information, but also to encourage political participation and support informed decision-making. Another key objective is to strengthen resilience against manipulation.

Focus on vulnerable user groups
Particular emphasis is placed on an intuitive and easy-to-understand design. The application is aimed especially at vulnerable groups, including people with cognitive impairments, older people and young first-time voters.

These groups may face different challenges when navigating digital information. Older people may be less familiar with digital media and how they work, while young people often encounter social media and algorithmically shaped information environments from an early age. KonCheck therefore aims to provide an accessible, low-threshold way of verifying and contextualising politically relevant information.

Interdisciplinary research collaboration
KonCheck is being conducted by an interdisciplinary research consortium led by Professor Dr. Jens Gerken of TU Dortmund University. The consortium brings together expertise in human-computer interaction, social research, communication studies, internet security and artificial intelligence.

The participating institutions are TU Dortmund University, the CISPA Helmholtz Center for Information Security, Westphalian University of Applied Sciences and Rhine-Waal University of Applied Sciences. At Rhine-Waal University of Applied Sciences, Professor Dr. Matteo Große-Kampmann, whose work focuses on distributed systems and the Cloud Resilience Lab, is involved in the project.