• Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) funds project as part of the German government’s National Strategy for Artificial Intelligence (AI) and the High-Tech Strategy 2025
• Development of AI software to automatically detect fake news related to financial markets in real time

Bonn/Cologne/Berlin, October 01, 2021. From October 2021 onwards, Bonn based Big Data pioneer Stockpulse GmbH and the Institute for Information Systems and Information Management (CIIS) at the University of Cologne are working together on a comprehensive research project dealing with the automatic detection of false news in social media related to financial markets. As part of the German government’s National Strategy for Artificial Intelligence (AI) and the High-Tech Strategy 2025 the joint project will be sponsored by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF). The main objective of the project is to develop smart AI software which automatically detects and clusters so-called fake news, produced by social bots or fake accounts in real time. The solution will offer reportings to supervisory and regulatory authorities, internal trading surveillance units of stock exchange operators, banks and financial service providers. The joint project has a duration of 30 months, the official working title is “AFFIN”: Automated and Digital Forensics of Publicly Available Data in the Financial Sector” and is registered under the BMBF code 01IS21045A.

“Stockpulse is specialized in collecting, structuring and analyzing news and opinions from social media with relation to financial markets. We maintain a unique and outstanding data history of more than ten years from many different social media platforms. Especially since 2014, we have noticed a disproportionate increase in questionable posts and obvious fake news clearly aimed to manipulate stock prices,” says Dr. Stefan Nann, managing director of Stockpulse. “Thanks to this new research project, we will be able to detect fake news in real time to share it with interested parties, such as regulatory authorities or surveillance departments. In addition the developed methodologies can be slightly adapted and used in other socially relevant areas to uncover misinformation”.

Stockpulse works with some of the largest stock exchange operators since 2019 and has an outstanding experience in the area of detection of fake news in social media underpinned by AI. Stockpulse has an extensive database that provides an extremely valuable input for this joint project. The proprietary developed AI software supports several languages, mainly German, English and Chinese. In the coming months, further languages, especially from Europe, will follow.

“We are pleased to contribute our expertise to a socially highly relevant problem in building AI-based, innovative and practical information systems” says Prof. Dr. Detlef Schoder, managing director of CIIS. “To enable meaningful filtering options and to reveal manipulative posts on social media, we are taking advantage of latest machine learning technology especially by using Natural Language Processing methods,” Prof. Dr. Schoder continues.

Prof. Dr. Schoder’s research focuses on digital transformation, NLP-based analysis of data, data-centric business model innovation, and applications of AI for decision support in air cargo logistics and Finance markets. The research of his AI working group “Machine Learning & Natural Language Processing” is based on word embedding approaches as well as further developments such as transfer learning based on deep learning.

About the Cologne Institute for Information Systems (CIIS) at the University of Cologne

The Institute for Information Systems and Information Management (CIIS) at the University of Cologne has been engaged in the application and further development of AI methods for more than 20 years. The main goals within the five departments are research work and teaching in the areas of: Artificial Intelligence, Data-based Business Models, Data Science and Business Analytics, Social Media Network Analysis and Network Science, Digital Start-ups, Business Informatics and Sustainability, Energy Economics and Policy, Business Process Management and Digital Transformation, Systems Development and Project Management as well as IT Outsourcing and Cloud Computing. CIIS belongs to the Faculty of Economics and Social Sciences at the University of Cologne. Alongside to their research efforts, CIIS provides teaching services in the Bachelor’s and Master’s degree programs in partnership with the Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences as well as in postgraduate education, including the Cologne Business School. CIIS is involved in numerous international and national funded projects and continues to expand its existing activities in numerous cooperative projects with scientific research partners and, in particular, with practitioners. CIIS is one of the leading research institutions in Europe in the field of information systems. For further information just visit: https://ciis.uni-koeln.de/

For more information on the German government’s National Strategy for Artificial Intelligence and the High-Tech Strategy 2025, please visit:

https://www.ki-strategie-deutschland.de

https://www.bmbf.de/bmbf/en/research/hightech-and-innovation/high-tech-strategy-2025/high-tech-strategy-2025.html