Fake News Management in Healthcare

Fake news has gained significant ground in the political sector, since 2016 American elections, followed by Brexit disinformation. The COVID ‘19 pandemic was the catalyst in healthcare, by spreading false information regarding the Corona virus. Thus, the issue of fake news became not as trivial as the impact of such information into other fields, as we are talking about people’s lives at stake. Therefore, it is of uttermost importance to combat fake news in healthcare, but also in the medical act – as not only the patient is subject to disinformation, but medical personnel as well. Moreover, it is preferable to repel any type of false information regarding the healthcare act, before it gets widespread, to the public, to suppress its possible effects, which can be life threatening. The paper starts with a presentation of the existing work in the field of fake news in healthcare. We then present a set of data used for testing the proposed model. Then, we describe a model of a system for detection of fake news in the healthcare domain. The study ends with a comparison of the obtained results with other existing implementations, followed by future directions of research and the conclusions of our study.