A research study proposed by Dr SHEN Fei (Principal Investigator) and Dr Tetsuro KOBAYASHI (Co-Investigator) of CityU’s Department of Media and Communication is selected as one of the awardees in Facebook’s Request for Proposals (RFP) on misinformation and polarisation, after a selection process that the company describes as “incredibly competitive”.

Their project titled “Can third party fact-checkers on Facebook reduce affective polarisation?” intends to explore the influence of fact-checking exposure on attitude (de)polarisation in Hong Kong. It is among the 25 projects selected, out of over 1,000 submissions from 600 institutions and 77 countries around the world. 

In its call for submissions announcement in February 2020, Facebook emphasised the importance of its partnerships with social scientists to conduct research around challenges in domains such as news, misinformation, politics, health, civic engagement, trust, polarisation, and conflict on social media and social technology platform. This round of RFP, which provides a total of US$2 million in funding, looks into how companies in the social technology industry can better address these social issues on their platforms.

Dr Shen and Dr Kobayashi, along with other awardees, will conduct investigation across 42 countries. Award amounts of each project will range from US$50,000 to 150,000.