The National Science Foundation of the United States, an independent federal agency under the US government, created by the Congress back in 1950 "for the development of scientific research, national health, welfare and for national defense," granted a grant to create a technology that would allow digital devices to recognize on the Web fake news.

Financing in the amount of 300 thousand dollars for the development received two teachers of the State University of Pennsylvania, which is already closely dealing with this problem.

Informatics professor Dongong Li and professor of the department of information and communication technologies Shyam Sundar note that fake news has existed for many decades, but the development of the Internet and social networks has simplified their distribution, turning into a dangerous tool for influencing public opinion.

Scientists plan to investigate "characteristic indicators of counterfeit news" and to offer a mathematical solution that will allow digital devices to recognize these indicators, Yahoo News reports citing AP.

Note, experts of computer security systems refer fake news to one of the most serious cyberthreats. The constantly growing number of fake news in social networks pose a threat to the growth of cyber propaganda.

The appearance of false news on the web and their influence on readers' opinions was partly the reason for the outcome of the vote in the US presidential election that led to the victory of Donald Trump.

The heads of high-tech companies and governments of different countries are actively fighting fake publications. The development of tools, the use of which would reduce the number of such news, is already being handled by many large corporations.

Facebook at the end of 2016 launched a mechanism in the US that allows third-party organizations on user complaints to verify the reliability of information contained in suspicious publications. Later this tool was launched in the pre-election period in Germany and France.

In mid-January, a project was announced in the US called the Facebook Journalism Project, which includes three main areas: cooperation with the media in the development of new products and formats, training journalists to work with Facebook services and tools, and increasing the news literacy of social network users.

Twitter microblogging service intends to introduce a feature that will allow users to tag tweets that, in their opinion, contain false or dangerous information.

Recently, accusations of spreading spurious news are increasingly being addressed to Russia. The special committees for intelligence in the Senate and House of Representatives of the US Congress, which conduct proceedings on the attempts of Russian authorities to influence the election of the American president in 2016, applied to Facebook with a request to disclose information on whether Trump's campaign headquarters cooperated with representatives of the Russian Federation for publication in sotsseti unreliable news that could contribute to the victory of the Republican in elections. Moscow was accused that it was behind the publication on the Internet of news discrediting the reputation of the presidential candidate and ex-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

In France, the new president of the Republic, Emmanuelle Macron, during a joint press conference following the talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin in May this year, called the Russian TV channel Russia Today and the Sputnik news agency "false propaganda", accusing them of spreading falsehood in France information and slander.

Germany's special services, where parliamentary elections are due in September (Bundestag), warn of the dangers of cyber attacks from Russian hackers and mass propaganda on the Web in the interests of the Russian Federation. In June, the coalition of the current Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany, Angela Merkel, conducted through the Parliament the "Law on Order of Networks", according to which the social networks will be fined not less than $ 50 million if they do not immediately remove "illegal content", under which propaganda and fake messages fall.

In the European Union, an agency has already been created to refute fake news and Russian propaganda. In the Czech Republic, a police agency has been established that combs social networks in search of disinformation and other "hybrid threats".

Sweden and Denmark defense ministers Peter Hultkvist and Klaus Yort Frederiksen stated the need for the EU countries to jointly resist Russian propaganda on the Net, noting that the so-called hybrid war includes not only cyberattacks, but also the dissemination of disinformation and fake news influencing the public opinion.

All these steps point to serious fears that the instruments of political sabotage have improved so much that they could threaten Western democracies.