MARYEM BUKHATAMIN (ABU DHABI)
Researcher Zein Mohammad Mojahid, a graduate of Mohamed bin Zayed University for Artificial Intelligence (MBZUAI), dedicated his master’s thesis to analysing the growing dissemination of false news on social media platforms and its concerning impact.
Mojahid has observed the rise of fake news on social media, leading to negative impacts on society. Many now believe everything they read online, including false information, prompting the need for research at MBZUAI with experts like Professor Preslav Nakov.
Mojahid directed his studies towards earning a Master of Science degree by examining media bias characteristics in the media as a whole, as opposed to analysing individual media content exclusively, stating that he utilised advanced linguistic models for his research. His study revealed that the way certain media platforms handle news content could be biased. Prejudice exists at different levels, which can also be associated with political convictions or stances on societal matters.
Mojahid used 16 reference standards to predict media biases of large linguistic models, which simplified and improved the analysis of media materials compared to traditional methods that are more labour-intensive. This involves using an app that can notify you of extremely biased and possibly false news, emphasising the identification of biases and confirming the legitimacy of news from new media sources.
Mojahid aims to create a programme that allows the user to input a link to the material they want to evaluate, and the programme will conduct a thorough analysis, including identifying any biases present.
According to Mojahid, the app will aid journalists and media organisations in sorting media content by credibility to combat the spread of misinformation.
The research also examines English media alongside content in other languages, including Arabic, German, Hindi, French, Spanish, Japanese, Italian, and Russian. This method will create a structure that can adjust to various languages and cultural settings for a seamless sharing of knowledge, thereby improving the precision in identifying fake news.
The researcher highlighted the high quality of education at MBZUAI, with a student to faculty ratio of four to one. This ratio aids in facilitating knowledge transfer and convenient access for students to every faculty member in the university. Mojahid also commended the university’s social life and recreational facilities for aiding him in maintaining a healthy equilibrium between his academic and personal life, given that the institution welcomes students from over 40 different nationalities.
Mojahid intends to pursue a career in research and pursue a doctoral degree, either at the MBZUAI or a university in North America. He noted that MBZUAI has equipped him with the tools needed to advance his research career. Furthermore, he also shared his admiration for the chances he had to engage in different projects at the university, notably his contribution to the advancement of the GES platform, the biggest and most precise linguistic model in the Arabic language globally.
He was able to join the MBZUAI student’s team, which represented the university at COP28. The Class of 2024 at MBZUAI, consisting of 101 graduates, is the biggest class in the university’s history, showcasing its ongoing expansion and worldwide recognition as a leading entity in the field of AI.
In a span of only five years since its establishment, the university has rapidly risen to be one of the top 100 universities globally in computer science and also ranks in the top 20 in AI, computer vision, machine learning, natural language processing, and robotics.