Programmer Makes App to Verify Validity of Information|"美玉姨"辨別假新聞 自動闢謠給答案

People often passes on different tips on preventing cancer to their peers via messaging apps. However, most can't tell whether these health tips are legitimate. Hsu Hsih, a software engineer working in Hong Kong, designed a phone app that can join the discussion groups and automatically verify the validity of the health tips.


"Ice water increases the chance of cancer. Eating onions can help prevent cancer." No one knows if these health tips are true or not. However, as most people in Taiwan uses Line, a messaging app, for communication, information like this still gets propagated. Hsu Hsih, a Taiwanese software engineer working in Hong Kong, wrote an automated app that can provide answers to those who are unsure about the health tips.

I opened up my Line app one day, and saw a lot of messages passed around in my family group. There were more than 2,000, and about 40 percent of the information seems fake. Text-based messages like this could be easily widespread, because it's easy to share (within the app). It's hard to ask the elderly to use google to verify the information.

The mobile app he designed can help people save time and verify these messages quickly. Its name "Mei Yu Aunty" is personable as well. All one has to do is to add the app as a friend and have it join a chat group, and it can automatically verify the validity of incoming information by comparing it with its own database. If one is uncertain about the validity of a cancer prevention tip, the app can provide the answer, "the factors that affect one's health is very complex and a single food type can't work any magic." Hsu Hsih, has signed the persona behind the app, Mei Yu Aunty, as someone who's approachable. The goal is to make the app easy to use for those in their 40's and 50's and are unfamiliar with the internet. The app went online at the end of last year, and it has been downloaded for more than 120,000 times in the last three months. The designer, Hsu Hsih, said that it's not enough to just rely on the app to verify whether a piece of information is real. He reminds the public to think independently when judging the validity of new information.



"喝冰水致癌？吃洋蔥抗癌？是真的還是假的。類似的養生資訊大家不陌生，尤其在國人愛用的通訊軟體LINE上經常瘋傳。這讓在香港工作的台灣工程師徐曦寫出一套自動回覆程式，幫爸爸媽媽叔叔阿姨找答案。

"美玉姨"設計者 徐曦表示：「有一天就把line打開來，上面就很多，就是那種，家族群組傳的訊息，大概兩千多則，裡面可能有40%左右，讓人覺得這看起來就很假，這種文字性的謠言可以傳得很廣泛，是因為很好(轉)傳，然而你要讓他(長輩)傳到Google，去找一下答案這就比較難了。」

省時又省力，幫忙找答案的機器人，有個親切的名字叫作"美玉姨"。只要加為好友，放進群組內的簡單步驟，讀到傳來的訊息，就會自動比對資料庫，給出回覆。抗癌妙方有效嗎？美玉姨會告訴你："影響健康的因素很複雜，單一食物無法發揮神力"。為了避免使用者排斥，徐曦想出"鄰居阿姨"的形象，目標鎖定4、50歲以上，不熟悉網路生態的族群。美玉姨自去年底上線，三個多月已有突破12萬人使用，然而面對層出不窮的假消息，徐曦覺得還遠遠不夠，提醒大家"獨立思考"很重要。