Dr Bontcheva started working in this field in 1996. She originally analysed news before moving into the world of social media. The current project aims to check rumours automatically in real time – the previous study had been all manually done. They are looking at four types of rumours – speculation, controversy, misinformation and disinformation – each with specific characteristics. For example says Dr Bontcheva, the area of ‘speculation’ concerns activities such as speculation on ‘whether the Bank of England is going to raise interest rates. You don’t know until this actually happens. The real challenge for us is how to recognise these things automatically and the different properties that they have over time.’ The system will check where the information is coming from, for example from a journalist or from an instantly created Twitter account.