Gionnieve Lim

Gionnieve Lim, Simon T. Perrault

There is increasing interest in the adoption of LLMs in HCI research. However, LLMs may often be regarded as a panacea because of their powerful capabilities with an accompanying oversight on whether they are suitable for their intended tasks. We contend that LLMs should be adopted in a critical manner following rigorous evaluation. Accordingly, we present the evaluation of an LLM in identifying logical fallacies that will form part of a digital misinformation intervention. By comparing to a labeled dataset, we found that GPT-4 achieves an accuracy of 0.79, and for our intended use case that excludes invalid or unidentified instances, an accuracy of 0.90. This gives us the confidence to proceed with the application of the LLM while keeping in mind the areas where it still falls short. The paper describes our evaluation approach, results and reflections on the use of the LLM for our intended task.

Gionnieve Lim, Bryan Chen Zhengyu Tan, Kellie Yu Hui Sim et al.

The emergence of Large Language Models (LLMs) presents a dual challenge in the fight against disinformation. These powerful tools, capable of generating human-like text at scale, can be weaponised to produce sophisticated and persuasive disinformation, yet they also hold promise for enhancing detection and mitigation strategies. This paper investigates the complex dynamics between LLMs and disinformation through a communication game that simulates online forums, inspired by the game Werewolf, with 25 participants. We analyse how Disinformers, Moderators, and Users leverage LLMs to advance their goals, revealing both the potential for misuse and combating disinformation. Our findings highlight the varying uses of LLMs depending on the participants' roles and strategies, underscoring the importance of understanding their effectiveness in this context. We conclude by discussing implications for future LLM development and online platform design, advocating for a balanced approach that empowers users and fosters trust while mitigating the risks of LLM-assisted disinformation.

Gionnieve Lim, Juho Kim, Simon T. Perrault

Social platforms have expanded opportunities for deliberation with the comments being used to inform one's opinion. However, using such information to form opinions is challenged by unsubstantiated or false content. To enhance the quality of opinion formation and potentially confer resistance to misinformation, we developed Iffy-Or-Not (ION), a browser extension that seeks to invoke critical thinking when reading texts. With three features guided by argumentation theory, ION highlights fallacious content, suggests diverse queries to probe them with, and offers deeper questions to consider and chat with others about. From a user study (N=18), we found that ION encourages users to be more attentive to the content, suggests queries that align with or are preferable to their own, and poses thought-provoking questions that expands their perspectives. However, some participants expressed aversion to ION due to misalignments with their information goals and thinking predispositions. Potential backfiring effects with ION are discussed.

Gionnieve Lim, Simon T. Perrault

Fake news is a prevalent problem, particularly in digital media, that undermines trust and cooperation among people. As a variety of global mitigation efforts arise, the understanding of how people consider fake news becomes important, especially in local contexts. To that end, we carried out a survey with 75 participants in Singapore to understand people's perceptions of and practices with news (real and fake). Locally, fake news was found to be more pervasive in instant messaging apps than in social media, with the problem attributed more strongly to sharing than to creation. Good news sharing practices were generally observed. Highest trust was reported in government communication platforms across 11 media items. These results show that Singapore possesses a peculiar sociocultural scene, suggesting that efforts directed towards locally relevant measures may be more effective in addressing fake news in Singapore. We detail the survey results and recommended directions in this paper.