Unveiling temporal patterns in information for improved rumor detection

Rumor detection is a critical task for addressing the spread of misinformation and maintaining the credibility of information sources. Natural Language Processing (NLP) techniques have been employed to propose efficient and effective methods for rumor detection. In the wake of the widespread COVID-19 pandemic, the world has faced extensive strain on health, economics, and social structures. The dissemination of false or inaccurate information on social media, whether intentionally malicious or unintentional, has had detrimental consequences for individuals and society, particularly during critical situations like real world emergencies. In this study, we aim to explore the textual and temporal features present in social media posts (specifically tweets) related to COVID-19 to detect rumors as time is unique feature of text and any event can be mapped on timeline. Previous studies utilized the textual features and the temporal features are neglected at large for rumors detection. We utilize both temporal and textual features independently, as well as in combination, to train machine learning and neural network models. The evaluation of multiple algorithms (RNN, LSTM, CNN, DNN, BERT) across various feature sets reveals diverse performance. RNN and LSTM improve with combined textual and temporal features, highlighting temporal information’s importance. CNN performs well with textual features but declines with temporal features. DNN maintains consistent performance, while BERT demonstrates moderate effectiveness in classification tasks.